


Foreign Feelings

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Hunter X Hunter, Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blood Kink, Blood and Violence, Childhood Trauma, Coma, Drift Compatibility, Established Relationship, Flirting, Hospitals, M/M, Masochism, Mildly Dubious Consent, Reunion Sex, Rough Sex, Sadism, Topping from the Bottom, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-10-03 14:07:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17285501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Hisoka thinks Illumi must take some comfort from the cold shape of the exoskeleton the Jaeger forms around them when they are piloting; he’s certainly cold enough himself, never offering so much as a flicker of emotion across the Drift when he and Hisoka slide into it together." Illumi is a perfect Drift partner for Hisoka, as much for his composure as his skill, but Hisoka never knows when to stop pushing, and the Drift brings with it answers to questions left unvoiced.





	1. Overlay

Hisoka loves the Drift.

Most pilots do. There’s a satisfaction to the fit of a Jaeger around you, to feeling yourself the guide of something larger than yourself, bigger than you could ever manage to be in the span of your own body; and there’s the intimacy, too, the comfort of sharing your existence with someone else. That latter is something Hisoka has heard, has gathered from the murmurs of other pilots around him; for himself he’s only experienced it a handful of times, and never found it thrilling enough to be worthy of note. For him it’s the power, the expansion of himself rather than the loss of his identity in someone else; and it’s that, he thinks, that makes Illumi Zoldyck a perfect partner for him.

There was never any question of Illumi’s path in life. The Zoldyck family has turned out a handful of ace Jaeger pilots to run the machines built by the organization their father leads; Illumi is just eldest among them, one of the first pilots to be strapped into the dual-occupancy cockpit and spill his identity into the shape of metal around him. Hisoka thinks Illumi must take some comfort from the cold shape of the exoskeleton the Jaeger forms around them when they are piloting; he’s certainly cold enough himself, never offering so much as a flicker of emotion across the Drift when he and Hisoka slide into it together. Illumi is like a doll, as blank and unfeeling as if he’s just another cog in the shape of the robot around them, and he accepts Hisoka’s identity as readily, like he’s taking the imprint of a stamp that comes a little easier with each repetition. By now, long months of training and longer months of fighting after their first Drift, even stepping out of the Jaeger isn’t enough to split them fully into their constituent parts, at least not right away. Hisoka comes out of the Drift breathless and panting with the rush of his strength, of his power, of his dominance; and when Illumi is freed of the connection to the machine around them, the skin-tight cling of their pilot suits leaves no doubt of the arousal that has risen him nearly as achingly hard as the inevitable erection tenting the front of Hisoka’s own suit.

Hisoka craves it. The Drift is orgasmic, bearing with it all the thrill of combat, all the rush of violence, but the afterglow is pleasure more physical than psychological, an alignment of his mental satisfaction with the throbbing heat of desire that courses through his veins to spend itself against the nearest available partner. Better to have that be the pilot who joined him in that Drift, who still has Hisoka’s own memories of lust and blood and heat floating in his head, until when Hisoka shoves Illumi back against the door of their shared quarters and grips his chin to kiss deep into the give of the other’s mouth he imagines he can taste his own blood on the back of Illumi’s tongue, coppery and as vivid red as the shade of Hisoka’s tangled hair.

Illumi never protests. He has never protested anything, whether partnering with Hisoka or Drifting with him or sleeping with him, after their first training drop left Hisoka breathless and trembling as if with an electrical charge of want seeking a fixed point to ground itself against. Hisoka had been surprised, the first time, to discover how easily Illumi let himself be stripped, how readily he surrendered the give of his skin and the tension of his body over for Hisoka’s wanting use; now it’s an assumption so ingrained that Hisoka thinks of the Drift as foreplay as much as anything else, of the spray of Kaiju blue that meets their less-careful blows as part of the experience as surely as the stretch of Illumi’s pilot suit giving way to the pull of Hisoka’s hands peeling it from the long limbs and pale skin of the other’s body. Illumi lets himself be stripped to bare skin, lets Hisoka push him down to sprawl boneless and slack over the single bed they share when they are sleeping in the literal as well as the euphemistic sense, and when Hisoka unclasps the front of his pilot suit enough to draw free the straining heat of his cock Illumi tips his knees open, and lifts his arms into pliant surrender, and lets Hisoka’s body lay claim to his as surely as Hisoka’s consciousness dominates their Drift.

Hisoka adores it. The only downside to the Drift is that it is so brief, that it requires the threat of an incoming Kaiju and the luck of being the Jaeger selected to allow him to indulge in it for any length of time. When he emerges he is always left craving more, with his appetite whetted rather than sated by the clasp of someone else’s identity so close against his own. It’s a relief to return to his quarters with his partner in hand, to open Illumi’s body up for his taking as surely as the Drift unfurls the space of the other’s mind for the fingerprints of Hisoka’s existence, and when Hisoka thrusts forward to bury himself within his partner he would swear his vision flickers blue with an afterimage of the electrical impulse that plugs into his pilot suit to claim him for the shared space of the Jaeger’s control. Illumi’s gaze flickers, his lashes dipping in that barely-there surrender that is all he ever gives up, to the Drift or to Hisoka alike, and Hisoka is left to curve his spine in to cage Illumi beneath him and work proof of his identity as deep within Illumi’s body as his effect has laced itself through the other’s mind.

It’s a strange kind of connection, with Illumi. Hisoka has had other partners while he was in training: most of them break away as soon as the Drift sets in, reeling back from the force of his presence with a fear of something more alien to their consciousness than even the Kaiju on the other side of the Wall. The few that managed to successfully Drift with him emerged white and trembling from the training drop, as weak as if Hisoka drained them of their physical strength to supplement his own desire, left unsatisfied even after his return to his quarters and extended indulgence in what relief he can find for himself. But Illumi never so much as blinked, even in their first training drop, even in their first mission when the sight of the Kaiju they were meant to kill rolled through Hisoka in a spasm of instant arousal, even when the blow of their Jaeger’s fist that crushed out the last of the monster’s life pulled Hisoka into such heights of ecstasy that his orgasm spilled into the Drift to drag Illumi into shuddering heat in the cockpit alongside him. Illumi accepts everything Hisoka brings to the Drift, lets Hisoka print his violence and his bloodlust and his arousal upon him as if urging bruises into his porcelain skin, and Hisoka finds his desire spiking the higher in answer, as if he might be able to make the Drift permanent if he thrusts deeply enough, if he comes hard enough, if he can drive himself so thoroughly into Illumi that his own voice spills from Illumi’s heat-parted lips, that the wave of his orgasm pulses from Illumi’s cock as an echo of his own. Hisoka doesn’t have to think about Illumi as separate from himself, not with the haze of the Drift still clinging to his vision and fogging at his memories: he’s an extension of Hisoka, a second body to hold the overflowing immediacy of Hisoka’s existence, until the friction of Hisoka thrusting forward into the grip of Illumi’s body feels more like masturbation than the joining of two separate people.

Hisoka has no complaints about that. He’s yet to find someone who has enough life in themselves to hold up to the force of his own, and if Illumi is passive as a doll beneath Hisoka’s body he’s a beautiful one, his blank eyes wide and dark enough to swallow up the light in the room and his mouth soft and pliant against the urging of Hisoka’s lips. When Hisoka grips at his hip Illumi catches his legs around the other’s with the slow movement of deliberation more than instinct, and when Hisoka’s thrusts grow too strong for the friction of the sheets to hold them still it’s Illumi who lifts an arm to brace them against the wall at the end of the bed, to press his forearm flat to the surface just over his head and offer enough strength for Hisoka to fuck against without concern for slamming his partner’s head against the metal wall of their quarters. Illumi lets Hisoka lose himself, lets Hisoka give over the mundane details to his consideration so the other can focus himself on what he does best, and after all Hisoka has never doubted his skill in this respect.

“Illumi,” he says, now, moaning the give of the other’s name to the curve of a pale throat, parting his lips wide so the strain of arousal in his chest throbs audibly over the slurring vowels and the soft consonants. He slides one hand up under Illumi’s angled-open thigh, dragging his palm hard against delicate skin before his fingers catch and bruise into the tendons at the underside of the other’s knee. Illumi doesn’t tense at the pain, doesn’t whimper at the force; he just gives, letting Hisoka push his leg all the way up to his chest to contort his body into tension that pulls tight around Hisoka’s cock with every sliding pull back, as if Illumi’s body is pleading to be taken while his voice remains silent in his throat. Hisoka grins into Illumi’s shoulder and dips his head down to brace his forehead against the other’s collarbone so he can look down and watch the shift of Illumi’s cock bobbing with each thrust Hisoka takes into him. “You look so good, sweetheart, I love having you like this.”

Illumi’s hand lifts, his fingers catch to brace deliberately at the back of Hisoka’s neck. “I am aware,” he says, words that would be sarcastic if they had any but objective fact on them. “You have mentioned it before.”

Hisoka groans himself into a laugh. “I have,” he agrees. “It’s still true.” He presses to Illumi’s knee against his chest, pinning the other down at the same time he steadies his weight so he can push up over his knees; Illumi’s touch at his neck slides free, his hand falling to weight over his chest as he goes on gazing up at Hisoka over him. Hisoka reaches for Illumi’s other leg to push it up alongside the first, pressing hard enough to curve Illumi’s spine into an arc and rock his weight back off his hips and towards his shoulders; the angle tips the other’s cock down towards his chest and lets the light reach the slick slide of Hisoka sinking himself into Illumi with long, fluid strokes. Hisoka bites at his lip, pressing his teeth to the point of pain and into the heat beyond, his throat straining on another groan as he watches himself fuck Illumi, his arousal spiking as hot on the sight as the immediate sensation of the friction.

“I love this,” Hisoka says, spilling the words as he lets his lip drag free of his teeth, as he keeps his head turned down to watch the rhythmic action of his body working into the give of Illumi’s. “It’s like I’m still piloting, like you’re my Jaeger and I’m plugged straight into your circuits.” The thoughts courses down his spine in a shiver, as if a memory of electricity is skipping against the connection points of the pilot suit still taut over Hisoka’s shoulders and clasping against his arms; Hisoka tips his head back, straining his throat on heat as he moans without regard for the echo of his voice against the walls of their quarters, as his hips stutter into arrhythmic force into Illumi before him. Illumi tenses for a moment, his thighs flexing under Hisoka’s grip, but when Hisoka drops his chin and returns his gaze to the other Illumi’s expression is still blank, his eyes fixed on the ceiling overhead with the flat dark they always show, even in the midst of a Drift. But his legs are still taut, his muscles starting to collect strain even if the rising heat hasn’t touched his expression, and that’s enough to draw a grin onto Hisoka’s face, the pull of it flashing at his teeth as he leans in towards Illumi before him again.

“You’re feeling it,” he says more than asks. Illumi blinks, his lashes falling and rising to bring his gaze to meet Hisoka’s intent focus, but he doesn’t answer, just looks up at Hisoka as his legs quiver in the other’s grip, giving way to tension too instinctive for Illumi’s rational distance to keep at bay. Hisoka grins and leans in closer, his shoulders flexing against his pilot suit as his weight curves Illumi’s back into strain to fold the other’s legs in tight against his chest. “You always feel it. I know, I’m in your head the same as you’re in mine.” Hisoka ducks his head in farther, pressing close enough that his lips are skimming the shell of Illumi’s ear; it’s only with Illumi’s mouth so close to him that he can hear the rasp of the other’s breathing as heat finally gains traction for itself against the impossible cool of the other’s existence.

“You like it,” Hisoka says against Illumi’s ear, whispering the words as if forming a suggestion to a lover, as if he’s giving voice to an innuendo too dark to bear full volume. “The violence. The blood. The _killing_.” Illumi quivers under him, the whole of his body tightening as if with an electrical shock, and Hisoka groans at the feel against his cock as Illumi clenches tight against him for a moment. “What if we just never left the Jaeger, darling?” Illumi’s hand shifts, his arm lying slack across his chest sliding down towards his hips, but Hisoka doesn’t lift his head, doesn’t shift his lips from the murmur he’s offering to Illumi’s ear. “The next time we kill a Kaiju we won’t come back to base. We’ll just keep on going, staying in the Drift, just like this.” Hisoka punctuates with a sharp thrust of his hips; Illumi’s breath rushes from him as if forced, his arm flexes as his fingers clench hard around the heat of his cock. “Me inside you, you around me, taking whatever we want, doing whatever we want, _being_ whatever we want.” Hisoka is moving faster, his motion spurred to haste by the heat of his own words; his attention is scattered, too dizzy-drunk on his own arousal to be able to tell the difference between the pulsing rhythm of his own want and the fluttering heat of Illumi tightening around him. Illumi is panting, now, Hisoka thinks; or maybe that’s just his own breathing fed back to him by the weight of Illumi’s hair spilled over the sheets beneath them, maybe it’s his own pleasure straining in the thighs under his palms and flexing in the shoulder against his chest. It’s not as if there’s a difference, not really, not as if Hisoka has ever been able to keep the lines distinct between his own want and the murmur of Illumi’s; as if Illumi truly is the metal shell Hisoka’s flippant suggestion made of him, a frame to fill out the strength of Hisoka’s arms and give form to the heat of his desire.

“I want it,” Hisoka moans into Illumi’s shoulder. “I want you, like this, always, sweetheart, _Illumi_ ,” as his fingers tighten to dig bruised-in fingerprints into Illumi’s thigh, as his other hand drops to slide under Illumi’s leg and reach for the side of the other’s neck instead so Hisoka can grip as hard at Illumi’s pulse as his pilot suit clings to his body. “I want to feel you, I want to come into you, I’m going to come, come for me, come with me, _Illumi_ ” that last half a wail, half a growl as Hisoka’s spine flexes, his body straining against the restraint of the suit against the radiant heat of his skin. His thighs knot, his balls tighten, his cock strains on expectation; and beneath him Illumi breathes out, a soft “ _Oh_ ” at his lips before his body quivers into orgasm under Hisoka’s. Hisoka can feel each tremor of heat against him as his body pins Illumi’s into the contortion Hisoka has forced him to, and it’s the feel of Illumi trembling with involuntary pleasure that flexes over Hisoka’s shoulders and opens his lips and throat and chest on sound. Hisoka’s air spills from him, his scattering attention leaving his exhale to shape to a full-throated moan that echoes back on itself from the metal walls around them as his release spills heavy and hot into Illumi around him. Hisoka spasms with the pleasure in him, shoulders and back and thighs and cock all pulsing with the relief of his orgasm, and Illumi surrenders to the wave of Hisoka breaking over him as easily as he surrenders to the Drift, as if he really is no more than the hollow shell Hisoka’s imagination makes of him.

Hisoka draws back into himself slowly, collecting the pieces of his scattered consciousness into the limited scope of his body with more resignation than anything else. His legs are shaking from overexertion, his shoulders are cramping; his balls ache from the force of his orgasm, protesting the intensity that Hisoka can still feel rippling aftershocks through him. His pilot suit is sticking to him, slick with sweat within and smeared with come without; proof of Illumi’s pleasure shows better against the dark fabric than it does over the other’s pale chest, and both are truer evidence of satisfaction than the unchanging dark of those eyes that fix on Hisoka’s with more instinct than interest as the other draws back. But that’s all Illumi too, as unchanging now as he has ever been, and Hisoka meets him with a dragging smile as he slides free on the other’s body so he can rock back onto his heels before falling to lean heavily against the wall behind him.

“God,” Hisoka groans, tipping his head back to the support and heaving a sigh that feels like it takes all the strength in his body with it. “You are a _fantastic_ fuck, Illumi.”

Illumi braces an elbow against the sheets under him to push himself up as he unfolds his legs and turns to sit upright at the edge of the mattress instead. There’s no hesitation in his movement, just the fluid grace that is all Hisoka has ever seen in him; if his body protests being folded in on itself for Hisoka’s use he is hiding it as perfectly as he ever does. His hair falls over his shoulders with his movement, spilling to a curtain over his back before Illumi lifts a hand to catch at the weight of it and bring it forward so he can run his fingers through to free what knots formed in the length of it. “Thank you.”

Hisoka purrs a laugh in the back of his throat. “You’re welcome,” he drawls, letting his words drift into the mockery that Illumi’s flat tone didn’t grant to his gratitude. He braces a hand against the bed to steady himself so he can slide forward to come in close against Illumi at the edge of the mattress and reach out to snake one arm around the other’s waist to catch Illumi in his hold before tipping in to press his lips to the knob of bone at the top of the other’s spine. “Don’t I merit a compliment too?”

Illumi tips his head as if to look back at Hisoka behind him, although he doesn’t quite complete the motion. In profile Hisoka can see the tips of his eyelashes and the clean line of his jaw against the ease of his lips. “I got what I wanted from you.”

Hisoka sets his mouth into a pout that Illumi doesn’t look back to see. “Ouch. You’ll break my heart like that, honey.”

“I doubt it.” Illumi lifts his hand to draw his fingers through his hair and smooth the fall of it against the back of his neck. “You seemed satisfied enough a minute ago.” He does turn his head fully, then, so he can fix the dark of his gaze on Hisoka. “Though if you need another round I can wait for my shower a little longer.”

“Mm,” Hisoka purrs, and ducks in to press a lingering kiss to the back of Illumi’s neck. “Tempting. If you want to wait for another half hour…?”

“No.” Illumi turns back to the rest of the room. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Fine.” Hisoka eases his hold on Illumi’s waist, bracing himself into a lean as Illumi gets to his feet with no more self-consciousness about the display this makes of his bare skin than he ever shows for anything. His hair is long enough to fall past his hips and to the top of his long legs; Hisoka angles his head and purses his lips on appreciation. “You know, you’re great in bed but the view’s not half-bad either.”

Illumi cants his head back to cast his gaze at Hisoka over his shoulder. “You could always join me in the shower.” His attention flickers down and across the other with objective consideration. “You could use it.”

Hisoka grins. “Yeah,” he says, and leans forward to smack against the curve of Illumi’s ass in front of him. “Start the water for me, beautiful, I’ll be right behind you.” Illumi doesn’t acknowledge the smack or the leer on Hisoka’s voice either one; he just turns away to cross to the door to the tiny bathroom in the corner. He leaves the door open behind him, and a minute later there’s the sound of water hitting metal as the first chill spray of the shower spends itself on the way to tolerable heat. Hisoka lingers for a moment where he is, appreciating the languid heat of satisfaction in his limbs and clinging sticky-close to his skin; then he pushes himself to his feet so he can stretch in a long, luxurious motion before shedding his pilot suit to the floor and crossing to the bathroom door to join Illumi in the glassed-in space of the shower.

It’s a small space, but Hisoka’s confident he can find a way to fit them both together within it.


	2. Intrigue

Hisoka and Illumi are an excellent team. Hisoka knows that objectively, even setting aside his own tendency towards self-aggrandizement. They aren’t liked, necessarily, aren’t as popular as the mysterious Chrollo or as brightly friendly as the newest pilot trainee Gon, but the combination of Hisoka’s bloodlust and Illumi’s cold logic gives them an unparalleled advantage in what are, in the end, assassination missions. Hisoka loves going out on drops, finds himself craving them when more than a handful of days pass without the crackling illumination of electricity coursing down his spine to plug him into the greater existence of the Jaeger that seems such a better fit than his limited body; and if Illumi never expresses any enthusiasm about drops, well, there is very little Illumi _does_ overtly care about. He is efficient in their missions, and mechanical in the Drift, and surrenders as easily to his desire as he does to the force of Hisoka’s; but Hisoka wonders, sometimes, if Illumi would even think to eat if it weren’t built into the routine of his day, if he would bother with sleeping were it not for the weight of Hisoka’s arm across his chest to pin him down to their bed for the span of late-night hours. Illumi is dispassionate about everything, Drifting and fighting and sex and Hisoka, and Hisoka wonders sometimes if he’s human at all, even as his distance makes him the perfect partner for Hisoka’s own particular needs.

The only time Hisoka ever sees any evidence of a personality behind the beautiful blank of Illumi’s face is in the training docks. Illumi’s not the only one who seeks out the space for the new trainees, where hopeful pilots team up with each other with the goal of finding a Drift stable enough to allow for assignment to a Jaeger of their own; before he met Illumi, and sometimes even after, Hisoka sought out the metal walkways that lead above the training ports to watch the up-and-coming trainees, or sometimes Chrollo practicing with his partner Kurapika. Hisoka lingers in the imagining of Drifting with someone else, with the enthusiastic new recruits or with one of the steady-eyed veterans so established with their own partners they even seem to breathe in sync with each other. Sometimes he even fantasizes about fighting them, as his imagination manages what reality never could and frames Jaeger against Jaeger, every blow a destruction tens of thousands of dollars in the remedying but a measurement at last to determine Hisoka’s skill against those of the star pilots who are so lauded by those around them. But Illumi lacks the heat that catches Hisoka’s breathing when he watches other partners training with each other, lacks the starry-eyed glaze that imagination sets into Hisoka’s vision; and there’s only ever one pilot who pulls anything like focus from the shallow blank of that unreadable, dark-eyed stare Hisoka knows so well.

Illumi’s younger brother Killua is a brilliant pilot. Hisoka can see the grace in him even when he has done no more than the training drops that are all his father permits him to take on, as yet. Killua Drifts with deliberate intention, with a care to his motions and an awareness of his actions even when he’s co-piloting that Hisoka rarely sees in anyone without years of experience with a dedicated partner. But it’s not as if Killua is the only talented pilot on the base; he’s not even the most skilled in his class, not when his partner Gon is the most naturally skilled pilot Hisoka has ever seen. And it’s not like he’s Illumi’s only sibling, either, nor his only brother on the base. So Hisoka can’t figure out why it is that whenever Illumi vanishes from their quarters or is absent over the scheduled intervals for the bland but filling meals they are served it should be so easy to predict where he will be: leaning in over a railing in the training space and staring at the dual-pilot shell of the Jaeger used for training drops with his eyes wide and dark and endless on intent.

“Pining again?”

Hisoka doesn’t jump at the sound of the voice. It’s not in his nature to be easily startled in the first place, and even the softest footfall hums minimal vibration through the hanging pathways that align themselves into makeshift viewing for the training drops below. He just tips his head instead, angling his gaze back over his shoulder to meet the gaze of Illumi’s youngest sibling Kalluto before he draws up the corners of his mouth into the most deliberately sultry smile he can find.

“I don’t pine,” he drawls, layering the words with the amusement the truth deserves. “I do the leaving, I don’t get left. I’ll find myself a new toy as soon as I get tired of playing with this one.”

Kalluto comes forward with his usual delicate stride, so intentional in the placement of his feet he seems more to be carried forward by the swaying of the suspended walkway around them than inconvenienced by it. “Aren’t you worried I’ll tell my brother what you think of him?”

Hisoka snorts. “I’d tell him myself if I thought he would care,” he says, and turns back around to brace his elbows against the railing before him so he can lean out over the space below rather than going on holding Kalluto’s deliberate gaze. “He knows what I think, you can’t hide anything in the Drift. We’re in a relationship of mutual convenience.”

Kalluto comes around behind Hisoka, shifting past the other on the narrow walkway without so much as brushing against the other’s clothes before coming to stand alongside Hisoka so he can look out at the domed cockpit below. “And you’d be happy to give that up for another?”

“If it were more fun,” Hisoka says, and turns his head to jerk his chin towards the trainees below. “I’d love to try my hand at partnering with this Gon kid, if he’d take a breather from flirting with your big brother.”

Kalluto offers an exhale that has the outline of a laugh framed against it. “I don’t think that would go well.”

“Why?” Hisoka asks, cutting his gaze sideways to leer at Kalluto. “Think I’d eat him up?”

Kalluto shakes his head. “That’s not the direction of my concern.”

Hisoka snorts. “You think I couldn’t handle _him_? He’s a kid, he’s likely to break out of the Drift and leave Killua to burn himself out the first time they face down a real threat.”

“He’s not what you think he is,” Kalluto says without any of the heat Hisoka half-intended to draw from him with the jab about his brother. “He’s a good match for Killua. Stronger than him, in some ways.”

Hisoka raises an eyebrow. “High praise from one of the Zoldyck clan. He really is a star student,” he drawls. “You got all this from the Drift?”

Kalluto huffs another laugh. “No,” he says. “I got it from watching him. I pay more attention to things than you do, that’s all.”

“I’ve got my sights on bigger things than the pet trainees on base,” Hisoka tells him. “But you _did_ Drift with him, right?”

Kalluto doesn’t even blink. “Of course I did.”

This isn’t a surprise. Kalluto can Drift with anyone, or at least has yet to find someone with whom he’s truly incompatible. He Drifted with Hisoka twice, once when Hisoka first started and then again, some months later, just before recommending Illumi as a partner for him. He’s the only person other than Illumi who has ever Drifted with Hisoka more than once; so far as Hisoka knows, he’s the only person but for Hisoka who has Drifted with Illumi at all. Hisoka supposes it’s some part of Kalluto’s mental flexibility that makes him able to adapt so readily to the psyche of his temporary co-pilots; that same adaptation also gives him a unique approach to pairing pilots with each other, beyond the clumsy approach of sparring or the awful meet-and-greet events Hisoka attended when he first joined. It also gives him an insight into the heads of everyone on base around him; something that Hisoka imagines might be a burden to live with day-to-day but that makes Kalluto a particularly good, and particularly interesting, well of information.

“And?” Hisoka presses, leaning in to weight his shoulder against Kalluto’s heavy sleeve. “What’s going on behind those big eyes that makes him so strong? What, does he dream about fucking the Kaiju or something?”

“You know, the Drift isn’t about sex for most people,” Kalluto says without so much as batting an eye at Hisoka’s teasing. “You should know that more than most, for how many partners you went through before settling down.”

“ _Everything_ is about sex, darling,” Hisoka teases. “I’m just honest enough to admit to it.” He tips his head to look across the walkway to the next one over, where Illumi is still leaning far forward against the railing in front of him and gazing at the blank shell of the drop cockpit below as if he means to bore right through the outside of it with the focus of his gaze alone. “Even that, probably. Is that what does it for him, the little brother thing?” Hisoka purses his lips and looks down to the training Jaeger below. “Not exactly my type, but I can hardly blame him. Give me half a chance and I would _love_ to Drift with our budding prodigy.”

“That’s not what it’s about,” Kalluto says. “For Illumi, at least.”

Hisoka grins. “But maybe it is for Killua? What, is he going to tear out my throat if I flirt with his new boyfriend?”

Kalluto shrugs. “He might,” he says, without showing any particular concern at the prospect of Hisoka being murdered in cold blood. “It doesn’t much matter anyway, does it? Gon is partnered with Killua, and you’re partners with Illumi.”

“Aww,” Hisoka purrs. “Are you that worried about me straying? Illumi should know he has such a devoted younger brother. Or does the brother complex run in both directions in your family, is that the problem?”

“Do you ever let up?” Kalluto asks. “Or are you like this all the time?”

Hisoka twists away from the railing, giving up his attention to Killua and Gon’s drop to turn the full force of his smirk on Kalluto instead. “I’m always on all the time, honey,” he purrs. “You should know, after coming back for seconds.” He reaches out to touch his fingers to the shoulder of Kalluto’s embroidered shirt and trail his touch down with deliberately seductive slowness over the front of the other’s chest. “Anytime you feel like giving up babysitting the new trainees, you know you can come play with me instead.”

“I like it just fine where I am, thanks,” Kalluto says. “I’d rather be safe and sound this side of the Wall than out there in a Jaeger with a bloodthirsty maniac.”

“Ooh,” Hisoka hums, and catches his fingers under the button of Kalluto’s shirt. “You sure know how to give a boy a compliment.”

Kalluto takes a half-step back to retreat from Hisoka’s touch. “It’s pointless,” he says. “He hasn’t so much as glanced your way.”

Hisoka’s gaze slides away from Kalluto’s face to the side, where Illumi is still leaning forward over the railing. A lock of his long hair has fallen forward around his face and is dangling heavy into the open air before him; Illumi doesn’t appear to have noticed it any more than he is paying the least attention to Hisoka or Kalluto, although the murmur of their voices must have carried the distance to his hearing even if he never looked up at the motion. Hisoka grimaces and turns his head away to look back to the other side of the space, away from the training drop that has so utterly fixated Illumi where all Hisoka’s attempts at the same have fallen short.

“I don’t know what he’s so interested in,” he says to his shadow cast large and misshapen by the light against the distant metal wall. “He’d be a better toy if he played back a little more.” He tips his head to cast his gaze at Kalluto still standing next to him. “You don’t happen to feel like spilling some of your big brother’s dirty little secrets for me, do you?”

Kalluto shakes his head. “Not today,” he says, and takes another step farther along the walkway. “I make a policy of not interfering with Drift partners once they’re piloting together.”

Hisoka wrinkles his nose. “You’re even more boring than Illumi,” he says, and pushes up from the railing to stand upright again. He takes his time stretching, moving deliberately so his shirt rides up off his stomach and the muscles of his shoulders flex, but when Hisoka looks back Illumi isn’t paying any more attention to him than Kalluto is. Hisoka rolls his shoulders out with force enough that he can hear the joints crack with the release of built-up pressure and steps forward to come around Kalluto still standing on the walkway. “I guess I’ll have to take him into my own hands if I want to get any fun out of today.”

“Good luck,” Kalluto tells him. “I’d wait until after the training drop is done.”

Hisoka looks back over his shoulder to cut a shadowed smirk at Kalluto. “And that’s why you’re here instead of in a Jaeger,” he drawls. “You have no sense of the thrill of danger.” And he turns his back on the younger brother to continue in his languid stride towards the elder, still leaning over the railing with his expression set on an endless shadow that thrills down Hisoka’s spine to see even secondhand.

Hisoka doesn’t know what Killua has done to merit Illumi looking at him that way, but if he can pull some measure of that intensity to himself, even via the fury that will follow an interruption, he’ll count the bland hours of his afternoon much improved for it.


	3. Fogged

It takes some effort to get Illumi to leave the training dock. Hisoka was expecting that; it’ll be a struggle to maneuver Illumi’s intent gaze to focus on anything else, when Hisoka has never been able to urge that kind of attention from the other by danger or anger or desire. But Illumi is pliant, usually, willing to surrender if never with any kind of personal enthusiasm; it’s strange to find him so resistant, now, as if that metal shell that seems to hold whatever spark of consciousness stirs him forward has melded with the grating under his feet to hold him impossibly sturdy. He doesn’t look up when Hisoka approaches, doesn’t so much as offer a glance in answer to the other’s put-upon surprise of “Why, Illumi,” as he strolls up and around the shadow of the other’s fixed lean at the railing. “Fancy running into you here. What’s a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?”

“I’m busy,” Illumi tells Hisoka, still without raising his gaze from the training Jaeger below. “Not right now.”

Hisoka bares his teeth in what could only be called a smile with an application of extreme charity. “Aww,” he whimpers. “But I’m so bored.” He comes in closer to Illumi and reaches out to wind one arm around the other’s narrow waist so he can pull them together and lean in close enough to ghost the sound of his exhale against the shape of the other’s ear. “I thought we could have some _fun_.”

“Later,” Illumi says without so much as a dip of his lashes to acknowledge Hisoka’s attempted distraction. “I don’t have time for you right now.”

Hisoka doesn’t even make an attempt at a smile this time. It’s one thing to have Illumi paying attention to someone else when Hisoka is at a distance; to have his focus be such that he musters force enough to actually rebuff the other feels like an impossibility. Hisoka leans in closer still, rocking his hips in to grind against Illumi’s thigh and turning his head so he can fit his mouth against the weight of that sheaf of dark hair, can urge a kiss to the back of the other’s neck. “I didn’t figure you for such a devoted brother,” Hisoka says, pressing the words close against the top of Illumi’s spine. “If you’re that into it why don’t we stay right here?” He reaches out to glide his fingertips over the middle of Illumi’s chest so he can wander his palm down the flat of the other’s stomach and towards the edge of his pants. “If you’re fast we can finish before brother dearest comes out of the Drift to see you.” He pauses, his fingers splayed to possibility at the top edge of Illumi’s pants while he purrs a laugh far in the back of his throat. “ _I_ can finish, anyway.”

“Do whatever you want,” Illumi says, still in such a flat tone that Hisoka wonders if he has heard the other’s words at all. “I’m--” and then there’s a grate of machinery, a whir of engines, and Illumi’s words cut off outright as the top of the training pod comes open to reveal Gon and Killua strapped into their respective halves of the Drift interface. Hisoka tips his head to look down at the pair below them, more out of interest for what could possibly hold Illumi’s focus so thoroughly than any more personal investment. Both boys are breathing hard, panting from the exertion that comes before the slow-motion effort of the Drift becomes second nature; Killua is as pale as the shock of his white hair, as if all the blood has been drained from his body, while Gon is grinning bright with enthusiasm in spite of his evident exhaustion. Hisoka can see Gon’s mouth move with some speech, although he’s far too distant to hear the words, but he can clearly see the two turn to look at each other, can see the light of Gon’s enormous smile catch itself into a moonlit reflection on Killua’s face. They smile at each other, bright with the innocent joy of their success; and then the trainers step forward to interpose between Hisoka’s gaze and Gon and Killua, moving to unstrap both boys as they start in on the debriefing, and Hisoka turns his head to look at Illumi next to him once more.

“So,” he says, drawling the word into heat at the back of his throat as Illumi’s lashes flutter, as Illumi’s gaze slides sideways to finally meet the dark of Hisoka’s stare. “Is it later yet?”

Illumi ducks his head forward. It’s not quite a nod, or it wouldn’t be on someone else; from Illumi it’s clear surrender, and Hisoka is opportunistic enough to take what he can get. He leans in close enough for Illumi to hear the hum of deep-down satisfaction in his throat as he presses his palm in to cup against the soft of Illumi’s cock through his pants, and when he draws back it’s only to lift his hand into a beckoning gesture to urge Illumi after him. “Follow me, sweetheart.”

Illumi does. That hasn’t changed at all; with Killua’s drop over, it seems his focus has given way once more to neutral compliance to Hisoka’s most definitive suggestions. He follows Hisoka back out of the training space and through the overwide halls of the base without protest, and Hisoka saunters in the lead, feeling his blood heat with the arousal of anticipation with every step he takes and making no effort at all to hide it from anyone they may happen to pass by.

“I’ve never seen you care about anything like you were invested in that drop,” Hisoka says as they’re drawing up to the heavy door that keeps their quarters private from the view and hearing of the rest of the base. “Are you shopping around for a newer, better partner?”

“No,” Illumi says, with no trace of defensive heat on his tone even for Hisoka’s taunting. “You’re my Drift partner.”

“And you’ve never thought of trading up?” Hisoka says, glancing back over his shoulder to smirk at Illumi. “I’m not going to hold it against you. I’ve had a thought or two about Drifting with that new kid Gon myself.” He turns back to the door to brace his grip against the handle so he can wrench the weight of it open. “Not that your brother’s a slouch himself. If he and Gon break up I’d jump on--”

Hisoka’s words break off sharply, not from his deliberate intention but rather from the shock of the force that hits the back of his head to slam his face against the door to their quarters. The impact crushes his cheekbone and brow against the unforgiving metal of the door before him; his head is turned enough to save the line of his nose from breaking, but Hisoka is very certain that’s a function of random luck more than any particular concern from the partner whose grip is still clutching headache-tight against the back of Hisoka’s skull after shoving him forward.

“ _Stay away from my brother_ ,” Illumi says, and Hisoka can’t see the expression that goes along with that tone but he can feel the dark of it shudder through the entire length of his body with something between the fear of self-preservation and, far more keenly, the heat of intrigue at such a response from the man who has never been anything but a model of passivity that Hisoka has known.

Hisoka shifts his head against the door in front of him. It’s hard to move at all; Illumi’s grip on the back of his head hasn’t loosened, and there is more strength in those slender arms than Hisoka would have ever guessed. Even the most motion Hisoka can get only lets him look through the shadow of his lashes and past the hunch of his shoulder, and the most he can see of Illumi from that angle is shadow, as if the weight of the other’s loose hair has swept out to swallow up all the details of his features beneath it.

“Oh wow,” Hisoka manages, his voice straining towards amusement around the dull throb of hurt starting from the side of his face. “Did I touch a nerve, big brother?” Illumi’s fingers tighten at Hisoka’s head, his other shoulder strains on the start of motion, and Hisoka wrenches hard against the handle under his grip to free the latch of the door and let it free to swing in and topple them into their quarters. Hisoka’s expecting the motion, or at least ready for the outright collapse of his forward lean against the suddenly absent support; Illumi is not, which is why the force of the punch he swings towards Hisoka goes wide into abruptly empty air instead of crushing through at least a few of Hisoka’s ribs. Hisoka gets one hand out to catch himself against the floor, or at least to save his already bruised face from slamming into the corrugated surface, but that’s all he can really manage to do. Illumi doesn’t let his hold on the other’s hair go in spite of the sudden movement; when Hisoka hits the floor it’s with Illumi right on top of him, the startling weight of the other’s body pinning him down as those fingers dig in farther against his head.

“Don’t think about Killua.” Illumi’s voice is low, dark and brittle in his throat; Hisoka has never heard him sound like that, had no idea he _could_ sound like that. “If you ever partner with my brother I’ll tear your heart out with my bare hands.” His fingers tighten against Hisoka’s scalp; from the burn of heat they bring with them, Hisoka can imagine claws in place of nails to grant the edge of legitimacy to Illumi’s words.

Hisoka coughs a laugh against the cold of the floor beneath him. “Do you always get this touchy about this subject?” he asks to the metal his mouth is crushing against. “I didn’t know you had this much heat in you for _anything_ , sweetheart.”

Illumi’s arm flexes. Hisoka can feel his scalp tearing to spill hot blood trickling through the red of his hair. “ _Hisoka_.”

Hisoka lifts his hands from where they were braced at the floor beneath them, holding them out as a clear sign of his surrender. “I’m not complaining,” he says. He can’t turn his head enough to look back at Illumi behind him but he makes a sketch of the motion, enough to convey the point even if he can’t finish it out. He has slightly more success with the force of his thighs against the floor flexing enough to rock him up fractionally against Illumi’s weight atop him, at least enough to let the resulting pressure down against the floor purr heat up his spine and groan in the back of his throat. “I can’t remember the last time you got me this horny, babe.”

Illumi’s hand shifts at Hisoka’s head. The pressure pulls at Hisoka’s hair but the scraping edge of nails has eased, Hisoka thinks; either that, or the heat in him is just too much to leave space to notice such trivial details as whether he’s bleeding or not. “You’re insatiable.”

Hisoka laughs against the floor. His lip is bruised, from the door or the fall he doesn’t know which; it makes the sound in his throat spill wet and sticky from his mouth. “Have been so far,” he says. “Why don’t you take advantage of the opportunity and remind me why I partner with you instead of someone else?”

Illumi pauses for a moment. Hisoka isn’t sure what answer he’ll get; Illumi is often pliant, occasionally petulant, but he’s never been like this before, like a tight-coiled spring ready to burst free at the wrong word, at the wrong breath. From the flex of his thighs around Hisoka’s hips he’s as likely to slam the other’s face against the floor as to fuck his body down against it; Hisoka doesn’t know which possibility has him breathing hotter but his inhales are clinging to steam against the floor, rapidly replacing the chill of the metal with the condensation of his breath instead. His cock is aching against the front of his pants, throbbing with arousal that Hisoka can feel dripping pre-come to soak into the weight of the fabric, but Illumi’s weight is pinning him too close to the floor for Hisoka to manage any but the most fractional movement to grind himself towards sensation. He tries all the same, straining his legs and stomach and back to win an inch of action, a centimeter of friction, until he’s so caught up in his struggle that the motion of Illumi suddenly rising to his feet is more startling than a relief. Hisoka’s hips come up, his action rendered far more effective without the weight of Illumi atop him, and Hisoka reaches to brace his arm at the floor so he can reach down to unfasten his pants with his other even before he lifts his head to look back over his shoulder.

Illumi is turned away, his back to Hisoka as he steps around the sprawl of the other’s legs to make his way to the door still open to the hallway. Hisoka drags the zipper of his pants down so he can shove the weight off his hips and lay himself bare, careless of the view he might be presenting to anyone who might pass by; by the time Illumi is reaching for the weight of the door Hisoka has his hand fisted around his cock and is stroking over himself with familiar speed, stirred to arousal by even the afterimage of Illumi’s brief fury. His scalp is still bleeding, trickling liquid through his hair even as it clots and dries sticky; when Illumi kicks out without looking to shove Hisoka’s legs out of the path of the door Hisoka falls onto his side with a huff of heat as much a moan as a laugh.

“I like you like this,” he informs Illumi as the other swings their door shut and pulls the handle up sharply to lock it in place. “Who knew you had a hidden sadist inside you all this time?” Illumi tips his head to look back over his shoulder at Hisoka, his eyes still cast into shadow by the weight of his hair and his mouth still tense with that brief flicker of furious rage, and Hisoka grins up at him before bracing a foot at the floor so he can push himself onto his back and make a better show of his hand pumping over his dark-flushed cock for Illumi’s view.

“What was it you were going to do?” Hisoka asks, teasing the edge of Illumi’s temper without pushing over it. “Tear my heart out of my chest, I think?” He presses his free hand to the tension of his stomach, under the steady motion of his grip pulling over himself, so he can push his fingers up and pull his shirt off his skin. Illumi doesn’t so much as blink at Hisoka exposing himself but he doesn’t look away either, and all Hisoka ever really needs is an audience anyway. He arches his back as his hand pushes up, letting the lean muscle of his chest ripple with the motion as he slides his palm in to weight against the rhythm of his heartbeat.

“Here it is,” he drawls. “Pounding hot just for you, darling.” He slides his fingers to the side, scraping with his nails over his chest before he pinches his grip tight against his nipple to twist rough over it. The pressure lances down his spine and Hisoka lets his head angle back against the floor, moaning from the depths of his chest as the sensation rushes out over him. “ _All_ of me is hot for you, honey.” Hisoka dips his lashes to look up through them at Illumi and curve the give of a smile up at the other. “You don’t need to take my word for it. Why don’t you come and see for yourself?”

Illumi goes on looking at Hisoka without saying anything for a moment. The bland consideration would be entirely ordinary, on another day; but Hisoka’s lip is still throbbing from that collision with the door, and however silent Illumi has fallen there is still something dark in his eyes, some part of that intent focus that he turned on Killua and Gon in the training Jaeger. Hisoka’s blood runs hotter in answer to that shadow, whether in anticipation of danger or instinctive arousal or some tangled combination of the two he doesn’t know and doesn’t bother to separate; he just moves faster, tightening his grip on his cock as heat climbs his spine and flexes in his thighs. He’d be happy to climax just as he is, with no more spur than the judgment in the absolute cool of that stare on him; but then Illumi turns aside, and the loss of his focus is enough to do what no action could and temper Hisoka’s movement into a breath of chill for at least a moment. He lets his hand drop from his chest so he can push up on his elbow instead, looking after Illumi while he goes on stroking with more habit than intention to the motion of his other hand, but Illumi is just crossing the room to their dresser set up in the corner, with Illumi’s drawer arrayed with meticulously neat stacks of tailored clothes and Hisoka’s crammed full with as many mismatched shirts as he can fit within. Not that Illumi is going for either of the drawers; he’s just reaching for the bottle tipped over at the top, where Hisoka cast it after their last interlude, and Hisoka grins and tips his knees wider as Illumi turns back around to see him.

“Are you going to fuck me?” Hisoka asks, feeling the words drop low and hot on excitement and not making any attempt to call them back to calm. “Fuck me, Illumi, turn me over and shove my face into the floor and make me come screaming around your cock, I want it, _please_.”

Illumi doesn’t so much as bat an eye at any of the words spilling themselves from Hisoka’s lips. “Yes,” is all he says, as cool and calm as ever; it’s only that uncommon clarity to his gaze that gives away his intensity for what it is instead of abstraction. He thumbs open the bottle of lube and upends it to spill across his fingers as he crosses back over the distance of the room. “Turn over.”

Hisoka does, rapidly enough to abandon his usual fluid grace in exchange for getting himself belly-down against the cool of the floor the faster. It’s not as if Illumi will appreciate the effort towards elegance, even if he makes it; and there’s something pleasant, too, Hisoka thinks, about leaving his willingness to obey as abundantly clear as the burst of rage that slammed his face against the front of the door to the room and is yet aching a bruise against his cheek and brow. He has to let his grip on himself go for a moment, just so he can get his hands under him and push his weight up over his knees, and it’s while his palms are flat against the floor beneath him that there’s the _thud_ of Illumi’s knees landing against the metal before a hand grips to bruising pressure against the angle of Hisoka’s hip.

“Stay there,” Illumi says, his tone as flat as it always is, as if that brief flare of rage was never there at all. But Hisoka’s on his knees before his partner instead of leaning in over Illumi on the mattress, his face throbbing bruised hurt in time with the ache of arousal in him, and when Illumi reaches out it’s to push slick fingers against Hisoka’s entrance, to urge pressure against the give of the other’s body instead of the other way around. Hisoka loses his breath at once, giving it up into the shape of a moan that strains his throat on its force, and when he drags another inhale it’s to offer more of the same, his tone more to convey the arousal in him than the actual sense of the words.

“ _Yes_ ,” he groans, his knees dragging over the texture of the floor as he rocks himself back in a futile attempt to fuck himself onto Illumi’s fingers. “Yes, like this, take me darling, _fuck_ me, I want--” and Hisoka’s words choke off to friction as Illumi’s fingers catch against him, as his desperate motion rocks him back against the strain of the other’s touch. His head tips up, his throat pulls taut on heat, and he’s whimpering, giving voice to the heat humming through him with the strange, unfamiliar sensation of another’s body intruding into his own. “Fuck, _Illumi_.”

“Yes,” Illumi says, as if they are having a logical discussion, as if Hisoka’s words are formed of deliberate thought instead of frantic heat. His fingers dig in against Hisoka’s hip, his nails catch to the threat of pain to brace the other steady. “Hold still.” And his arm flexes, his wrist works, and Hisoka moans with the feel of Illumi’s fingers working into him, the whole long length of them sinking into the tension of his body to force him open around the other’s touch. It’s a burn, an ache within him like that of too-much exertion, a pull drawn too far to be entirely comfortable, and Hisoka’s cock is straining towards his stomach, so hot with Illumi’s interest that he would swear it’s glowing as if with the same nuclear-hot core of their Jaeger. When Illumi’s fingers move Hisoka moans, full-throated and utterly wordless, and as the other draws back to take another unhesitating thrust forward Hisoka lets himself drop forward to the floor before him, weighting his forehead to the cool without thought for the ache of the bruise at his forehead any more than he feels the texture of the metal under his tensing fingertips.

“Fuck,” he’s saying, and “Illumi,” “sweetheart,” “darling,” “babe” tumbling over each other until he doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore, if it’s pleas or encouragement or raw desperation on his tongue. Illumi is moving deliberately, the heat of his lost temper spent or hidden back away behind the set of his expression, but Hisoka imagines he can feel Illumi’s gaze on him, as if the shape he has spent so long considering no more than a blank canvas on which to print himself has suddenly surged forward to seize and lay claim to him in turn. Hisoka gives way without resistance, his body clenching around Illumi more by way of appreciation than protest, and he feels the heat in him build, sliding down his spine like the blood of Illumi’s scratches slid over his scalp to knot in his balls and fist down in his abdomen just in front of the press of Illumi’s reaching fingers.

Hisoka doesn’t know how Illumi decides to draw back. It’s surely not Hisoka’s own guidance: he’s been spilling anxious desperation for the heat of Illumi’s cock as quickly as the other touches him, offering pleas unimpeded by any considerations of reason or logic or pacing. Maybe the focus in Illumi’s gaze is granting him an insight akin to Kalluto’s, who always seems to see through everyone he meets; or maybe it’s just that Illumi is bored, that his usual unflappable patience is worn as thin as his temper by Hisoka’s teasing. Hisoka doesn’t really care about the cause, anyway; all that matters is the friction in him pulling back, the pressure holding him open retreating to leave a hollowness in its wake, and then, very shortly thereafter, the surge of anticipation that spikes tension across Hisoka’s shoulders and brings his head up off the press to the floor he’s been sustaining while Illumi stretched him open.

“ _Finally_ ,” Hisoka gasps, shoving hard with one hand against the floor to push himself up so he can twist and look back over his shoulder to Illumi on his knees behind him. Illumi has his head down as he lets Hisoka’s hip go so he can unfasten the front of his pants; his hands aren’t even trembling, but when he pushes the clothing off his hips his cock is hard enough to more than satisfy any proof Hisoka needed of the other’s desire. Illumi braces his hand at the base of his cock, steadying himself with as little expression on his face as if it were Hisoka preparing to enter him instead of the other way around, but Hisoka doesn’t care. What matters is the solid heat of Illumi’s cock, and the aching want within him, and Illumi’s hand reaching out to weight his palm against the slope of Hisoka’s back where his ass curves down to the small of his back. Hisoka groans at the touch, dropping his head forward to brace both hands at the floor so he can curl his back and arch into the traction of Illumi’s touch, and when he urges his hips back he runs up against the resistance of Illumi’s cock against him. Hisoka whimpers, shifting his knees at the floor to wiggle himself backwards and into better alignment, and Illumi moves behind him to shift himself down and press the head of his cock up against Hisoka’s entrance. Hisoka can feel the heat of him, the blunt head of Illumi’s arousal urging against him, and he flexes his thighs to push himself backwards and sink himself fully onto the other’s cock in one long pull of heat that drains the air from his lungs to spend itself in a shout as much a moan as anything else.

“ _Oh_ ,” Hisoka offers, his head tilted back and his chest tight and his thighs straining on the need to urge himself backwards. “Oh, _god_ , Ill _umi_ .” Illumi’s hand is still at his back, a weight more of contact than force, but Hisoka doesn’t need any more encouragement than that, doesn’t even need that. His fingers drag at the floor, his knuckles curling up to peaks of strain as he forces himself back to fuck himself open on Illumi’s cock, and as he moves his breathing urges from him as if the heat is forcing it from him. “Fuck, _fuck_ me, _ohh_.”

Illumi lets his hold on the base of his cock go, although he doesn’t move to reach around and lay claim to the throbbing weight of Hisoka’s own length bobbing heat-heavy between his open thighs with each movement. He places his palm against the other’s back, just alongside the first so his hands are flush with the very base of Hisoka’s spine, and then he goes still, holding steady behind Hisoka as the other slides forward and rocks back to penetrate himself against the heat of Illumi’s desire. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t give voice to any more heat that what Hisoka’s own arousal can easily drown out; if it weren’t for the resistance of his cock still as hard and hot as ever, Hisoka would wonder if Illumi were even interested at all.

Not that it matters a great deal. Hisoka is always ready to find entertainment for himself in any setting, and even the memory of that flash of true emotion in Illumi’s eyes is enough to groan his every exhale into heat, enough to strain his thighs with desire as he thrusts back against Illumi behind him. The bruises at his face are swelling, his lip and his cheek and his brow all throbbing in time with each thud of his frantic heartbeat, and Hisoka can feel his cock twitching too, flexing through each surge of arousal with no more to urge it onward than his own imagination and the feel of Illumi inside him. He wonders what Illumi would have done if he had kept pushing for more, if he had continued to needle him after the other had slammed his face against the door of their quarters. Maybe he would be pinned to their bed, now, with Illumi’s rage burning hot enough to sustain itself through a round of fucking brutal enough to unravel even Hisoka’s need into pliant surrender. Maybe Illumi’s hands would be around his neck, pinning his moans back to straining need at the inside of his chest; maybe Illumi would be kneeling atop him, hands dripping with blood and eyes that strange, endless dark for Hisoka to stare into with his dying breath. Hisoka shudders with each possibility, his balls tensing and his body clenching hard around Illumi within him as he works himself over the other until his motions are going frantic, his thoughts hazy with the illogic that comes with rising pleasure as the tide of arousal crests too high for him to bear. His nails scratch across the floor, dragging for traction he can’t find, for resistance he can’t muster, but when he pulls a breath into his lungs it’s with speech in his thoughts, when he moves it’s to turn his head back to look over his shoulder instead of reaching down for the length of his cock dripping pre-come onto the metal beneath him.

“I should have known,” Hisoka grates, pulling the words free from his chest as his shoulders strain, as his back dips to valley under the tips of Illumi’s widespread fingers. “You really are the perfect partner for me, sweetheart.”

Illumi blinks, his lashes shifting dark over his eyes as he stares back at Hisoka. His cheeks aren’t even flushed from the heat Hisoka is sure he must be feeling; he could be as unaffected as if Hisoka were lying in front of him stroking himself off without Illumi involved at all. “Of course,” he says, voice flat and neutral-cool. “That’s why we’re partners.”

Hisoka’s mouth pulls up into a sloppy grin, sticky on arousal and as hot as he can feel his skin going under Illumi’s touch. “That’s right, babe,” he says. “I guess I don’t need to waste my time trying out your brother after all.”

He’s braced for the blow, this time, expecting the shift of Illumi’s hand coming up to seize at the back of his head, low down at the very top of his spine, but it’s still startling to see the darkness sweep in over Illumi’s gaze, like watching a reflection skate off the surface of a lake to reveal some endless depth below. Hisoka’s cock jerks in response, surging with heat as if in direct answer to the ice that has expanded to shine brittle-bright behind Illumi’s eyes, and then those fingers clutch in against the soft point just at the base of Hisoka’s skull and he’s being shoved down to the floor by that shocking strength again as all the power in Illumi’s lithe body comes forward to crush him into submission.

“Don’t even think about it,” Illumi grates out, his voice dripping with the raw edge of threat against his tongue. “If you so much as touch Killua--”

“You’ll kill me,” Hisoka finishes for him, the words muffled against the floor beneath him but still clear enough to be heard. When he grins his teeth press against the cool of the metal and ache up into his head. “Good thing you’re taking on the trouble of keeping me _thoroughly_ satisfied, isn’t it?” He pulls the adverb into a leer, drawling it over the depths of heat in his chest, and Illumi answers with a wordless hiss, as feral and vicious as if he’s given over his humanity outright, as if he has become one of the huge, writhing monsters whose lives serve as badges of honor for their mutually-piloted Jaeger. Illumi’s hips cant forward, snapping hard to drive into Hisoka before him, and Hisoka jerks with the motion, taunting forgotten in exchange for a throaty groan to give voice to his cock twitching with anticipation. Illumi’s fingers fist at Hisoka’s hair, pulling so hard Hisoka can feel strands dragging free to the other’s grip, and when he moves again it’s with force enough to shove Hisoka up against that grip and make it a brace instead of just a threat.

Hisoka moans for that too, louder than the first, and when Illumi continues moving he can feel his attention giving way, can feel even his interest in teasing the other to action fracturing to the force of Illumi’s movement. His mouth comes open to pant wet at the floor, his lashes flutter as his gaze drifts out-of-focus, as his eyes roll up with building heat, and when Illumi thrusts forward Hisoka convulses, moaning his pleasure under the force of Illumi’s hold while his cock spurts ropes of sticky heat over the floor beneath him. His neck tenses, his vision flickers to white, and Hisoka wonders distantly if Illumi can feel the jolts of the other’s orgasm under his grip, if his hold is tight enough for his fingertips to track the waves of heat that Hisoka can feel surging up his spine to blank out his vision and sap his coherence. If he does he doesn’t acknowledge them, by word or action; he just keeps moving, fucking Hisoka right through the course of his orgasm and into the shuddering too-much of aftershocks made bright with continued sensation, until Hisoka is whimpering at the floor, eyes wet and throat raw and thighs shaking weak with the unabated friction of Illumi moving into him. It’s too much, it builds and builds and builds with nowhere to go, holding Hisoka over the edge of orgasm until his body protests, until his mind teeters on agony, and then finally Illumi catches an inhale, sounding almost startled, and his movement ceases as he fills Hisoka with the heat of his release. Hisoka gasps at the floor, pulling in a breath that forces him back from the edge of overstimulated unconsciousness, and the fingers at the back of his neck ease and slide away to leave him sweat-soaked and trembling against the come-splattered floor beneath him. Illumi’s palms touch at his hips, pressing to steady Hisoka as the other slides back and out of him, and he’s drawing his touch away as fast as his cock, lifting his hands as he gets to his feet to stand over Hisoka.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Illumi says, sounding as perfectly, entirely calm as if there is nothing out of the ordinary about this interlude, as if he’s just rising from the bed beneath Hisoka rather than standing over the pleasure-shaky collapse he’s made of his partner. “Should I leave the water on for you?”

Hisoka coughs a laugh against the floor before he turns his head, feeling even that minimal action strain effort down his spine. “No,” he says. “I’ll handle it myself.”

“Suit yourself,” Illumi says, and turns to walk away across the room to the bathroom. Hisoka’s balance gives way to drop him to the floor, heavily enough that he can feel the rattle of the metal in the backs of his teeth and down along his spine, but Illumi doesn’t turn back, and Hisoka didn’t expect him to. He just steps into the bathroom, pulling his shirt off of his shoulders as he goes, and Hisoka is left lying on the floor, face bruised and body trembling and still so hot through every part of him he thinks he would still be hard if Illumi hadn’t so thoroughly drained him of strength. He stares at the far wall of their quarters, listening to the sound of the shower starting and the clatter of the door opening and closing around Illumi; and then he turns his head up towards the light overhead, and when laughter starts to swell in his chest he lets it spill free to join the humid heat of sex still hanging in the air around him.

Illumi really is the perfect partner for him. Hisoka can’t remember the last time he had so much fun.


	4. Enlist

Things fall back into more-or-less a routine, after that. It’s true that Illumi still lingers in the training space every time Killua has a drop scheduled, still true that Hisoka always knows right where to find him in the event that he’s interested in tracking down his partner for business or pleasure or both. But after finding out just how bright Illumi’s ire flares on the subject Hisoka finds himself retreating instead of pushing forward for what he thinks might be the first time in his life. Hisoka isn’t afraid of pain, or violence, or any kind of threat implicit or explicit; but there is something in the dark of Illumi’s eyes that says his murderous statement was a promise more than a toothless threat, and Hisoka is completely certain that Illumi absolutely will follow through on his intent should he deem Hisoka a danger to his brother. So Hisoka amuses himself with gossip with Kalluto, and teasing Milluki for the next drop assignment, and when he and Illumi are back in their quarters Hisoka indulges himself in playing with his favorite toy rather than making another trial run at being the plaything of someone -- or something -- else.

They still have drops. They have more assignments than ever, in truth, and not just them: Chrollo and Kurapika go out on as many as Hisoka and Illumi, and more and more of the trainee pairs are summoned to face down their first Kaiju in the weight of the Jaegers built for them or reassigned from previous Drift partners. For the first time Hisoka can remember he finds himself so nearly sated that he only barely begrudges the other pilots their drops, and he hardly thinks about offering to take them on himself at all; he’s only just getting a full night’s sleep between missions as it is, and he would swear even Illumi’s blank stare is starting to get a little haggard, where Hisoka would have sworn his partner never felt anything so simply human as exhaustion.

They’re in the briefing room this morning, urged there by a summons calling all active pilot teams into headquarters for some dramatic announcement. Hisoka dragged himself out of bed after a bare four hours of sleep; Illumi stayed under the blankets a half-hour longer and emerged looking fresher than Hisoka feels, which is to say he is approaching something like half-alive. Even Chrollo is yawning, if discreetly behind the cover of his hand, and if Kurapika looks wide awake it’s in exchange for such shadows under his eyes that Hisoka strongly suspects he hasn’t slept in full days. The K-Science lead Leorio is frowning at Kurapika from across the room, his arms folded across his chest and looking like he’s composing a lecture on self-care in his head, but with Milluki in his usual chair between the scientist and the pilots there is no occasion for him to launch into the harangue he clearly wishes for. Hisoka glances at the faces around him, idly scanning past Shalnark’s bleary expression to see if Kalluto has slipped in in spite of his fixed assignment to the trainees rather than the open battlefront, and it’s as he’s bracing himself at Illumi’s shoulder to come up onto his toes to better see over Uvogin’s enormous bulk that the door behind the crowd comes open, and everyone turns to look back and see Gon and Killua just stepping through.

“Hi there!” Gon chirps, lifting a hand to wave to the crowd before him. His tone is brightly cheerful, as saturated with energy as the glow of his smile; in the heavy exhaustion of the room it seems to sparkle like sunlight. “Sorry to keep you all waiting!”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Killua mumbles, speaking softly enough that the words are clearly intended for Gon rather than for the rest of the group. “We’re not late.”

“We’re not?” Gon looks down to Killua’s watch, where the other is extending his arm to point to the hands. “Oh. Well I hope no one was waiting for us!”

The door on the other side of the room opens, the heavy metal one that leads directly into General Zoldyck’s private quarters. Every head in the room turns to track the movement of the man stepping through the doorway, the commander of the base and of the resistance effort in general, and also the father of the extended and demonstrably talented Zoldyck clan. Hisoka lets his weight come back down onto his heels but keeps his hand at Illumi’s shoulder, weighting his hold into the sketch of teasing possessiveness, but if Silva notices the contact he doesn’t comment upon it any more than his eldest son does. His gaze slides across the room, marking each face in turn before lingering at Killua and Gon half-hidden in the shadows of those around them by the far door; it’s only then that he ducks his head into a nod and steps forward to place himself in the center of the room in front of even Milluki before his control panel.

“I appreciate all of you coming here this morning,” Silva says, his tone as calm as Illumi’s stare. That’s the only point of resemblance between them that Hisoka has ever been able to see; in almost every respect Silva looks like Killua writ large, from the weight of his silver hair to the steel of his blue eyes to the breadth of his shoulders, corded with muscle heavy enough to show even under the crisp lines of his shirt rather than the lean strength of Illumi’s body braced under Hisoka’s hold. Hisoka supposes the strength contained within them might be comparable, if his interlude with Illumi’s more heated side is any indication; but Silva is still speaking, his voice low and resonant enough to pull Hisoka’s attention aside from even the pleasure of the recollections in which he could engage. “I have been speaking at length with Milluki and Leorio over the last several hours, and it is now time to share our conclusions with all of you.” He takes a half-step to the side and lifts his hand to gesture towards Leorio’s hunched shoulders and set expression. “Leorio?”

Leorio unfolds from some, though not all, of his forward lean at this motion towards him. His dark brows are still drawn tight together over the miniscule glasses perched on the end of his nose; Hisoka often wonders if the latter aren’t more for show than anything else, since they can hardly be large enough to be of any real assistance unless the man reads cross-eyed, but he’s never had a chance to see them in action, and from the frown Leorio is turning on the crowd before him this won’t be a particularly golden opportunity either.

“We’ve got a big one on the way,” Leorio declares without any kind of preamble to the subject. “I’ve been running the numbers for the last several waves of attacks we’ve been taking and we’re about to hit the crest of the latest. So far we’ve been able to keep on top of the Kaiju by increasing our training rate and drawing on larger pools of volunteers, but we’re coming out of a tight patch and this is going to be the worst attack yet.”

“Will we have two at once?” Kurapika asks, his expression set and eyes focused on Leorio with the same intensity he brings to combat and communication alike. Hisoka has wondered what it must be like for Chrollo to take and ease off the force of that focus every time he Drifts with the other, but right now even the brittle edge of Kurapika’s voice isn’t enough to urge Hisoka into an imagining of taking over a Drift with the other to see if his own well-known effect isn’t enough to overcome even Kurapika’s steely commitment. All eyes turn back towards Leorio, some wide with horror at the possibility under Kurapika’s words, some bright with excitement. Illumi just goes on staring at the front of the room. He didn’t even turn his head to track Kurapika’s inquiry.

Leorio shakes his head aggressively. “No,” he says, firm enough on the word to make it nearly a shout. “We’ll have at least another round to prepare for something like that to happen. If it happens. This is just a single incoming enemy.”

“It’s enough,” Milluki cuts in, his voice nasal enough to tip towards a whine even without the perpetual note of discontent that he carries on his voice. “It’s bigger than anything we’ve seen before.” He pushes himself around in his chair to reach out and type rapidfire force against one of the multitude of keypads before him: behind him a hologram lights up, blue glowing brilliant against his face before he tips to the side to let the image of a rising and falling graph form itself in the space between him and the crowd around him.

“It’s a beast,” Milluki says, as if the enemies that have come before are no more than pests. “Every previous wave has hit a new peak and required a new Category definition.” He reaches out to stab a finger through the peaks of the line. “Two. Three.” He pauses to scowl at the crowd. “There were two of that category, when we made it that far. Four.” His finger sweeps up along the tail end of the line, following it to the peak it makes against the rest of the graph. “We already had a Four this time around. There’s definitely a bigger one on the way.”

“The question is not whether we will win,” Silva says, the smooth weight of his voice coming in to urge aside the rising strain of Milluki’s tension and the academic concern that Leorio constantly bears. “The question is how we will achieve our victory.” The crowd shifts, easing itself into something like calm; Hisoka feels the tension in the air give way and dissipate out around them, as if everyone has heaved a huge sigh of relief at the same time. Illumi still doesn’t so much as blink.

“You’re all tired,” Silva says, acknowledgment without apology. “That doesn’t change our responsibility. You signed on to defend the people at our backs, the world looking to us for their rescue, and that means you -- we all -- will do what is necessary.” He pauses to let these words sink in before he draws a deep breath to continue. “Having said that. All our active teams have been out in Jaegers almost nonstop for the last week. None of you are operating at anything close to your best and some of you are dangerously near the breaking point.” Hisoka glances sideways at Kurapika, with shadows smudged like paint beneath his eyes and lines carved valley-deep into every part of his face, but Silva’s professionalism holds enough to keep his gaze drifting smoothly over the whole crowd before him without lingering on any one person or pairing. “You all know how much I value experience, but there is something to be said for natural talent too.”

Silva’s gaze shifts sideways, the change in his focus as dramatic as anything that has gone before. Hisoka doesn’t need to turn his head to know where the other is looking but he does anyway. Gon is staring up at Silva, his eyes wide and unsuspicious of the trajectory of the other’s speech; there is no hint whatsoever in his face of what’s coming. It’s Killua whose forehead is creasing, whose mouth is starting to tighten on a frown as he watches his father speaking from the position of a commander considering which weapon to choose for a task.

“In light of the options available, and the incoming threat, I have chosen to send out Gon and Killua as lead on this new mission.” Silva turns his head to look at the rest of the group, meeting gazes as if to join debate with resistance that doesn’t exist. “They have demonstrated superb compatibility in the Drift and their record in training drops is unparalleled. I intend to send them out to take on this challenge as their first assignment as a formal Drift team.”

Gon’s eyes go impossibly wider, his whole expression lighting up with the brilliance of enthusiasm. “Really?” he says, sounding as thrilled as if Silva has just placed a wrapped gift right into his waiting hands. “That’s awesome!” Killua glances at Gon, his frown flickering towards something almost like pain as he looks at the other, but Gon is looking forward and doesn’t see his partner’s expression. “We’ll get to go out on a real mission?”

“Not just any mission,” Silva says. “We’ll be counting on you two to make the most of your energy to take out the Kaiju as soon as it hits our radars. You’ll need to be on-call and ready to go at a moment’s notice, but I think you both are well-rested enough to manage it. We’ll assign a backup team as well, in the event that something--”

“ _No_.”

Hisoka does not startle easily. He’s aware enough of his surroundings to know roughly what is coming, whatever Kalluto says, and he’s good enough at reading a group of people to know who to focus on and who he can safely ignore. To have a voice come from a member of the latter category is startling enough; for it to be one Hisoka knows so well and has so rarely heard hit that intensity is unheard of. Hisoka’s head swings around, his attention dragged away from Killua and even the unhesitating enthusiasm in Gon’s face by Illumi’s speech, loud and sharp enough to pull every eye in the room onto him.

Illumi doesn’t look at all alarmed by the sudden attention turned on him, even as his father’s forehead creases with judgment at this interruption. He’s looking up, facing forward with his eyes wide and gaze steady, although Hisoka is certain he’s looking into the empty space between the three standing before them rather than at any one of them. There’s certainly no hesitation in his expression, no embarrassment to color red at his cheeks; he just goes on looking straight forward, making a model of composure for the attention of everyone around him.

Silva clears his throat. “What was that, Illumi?”

“No,” Illumi says again, a doll playing back a prerecorded statement in answer to an external request. “They aren’t going out after the Kaiju.”

Silva raises a single white eyebrow. “Are they not,” he says. His tone is a warning as surely as the deliberate action he takes of folding his arms over his chest. “What solution do you present for our conundrum instead?”

“I’ll fight it,” Illumi says, without so much as glancing to gauge Hisoka’s reaction. “I’ll take my Jaeger and go out after it.”

Silva’s other eyebrow jumps up. “You really think you and your partner are rested enough to take this on?”

Illumi’s lashes dip for a moment, a stutter of confusion at this reminder of Hisoka’s existence even though the other is standing right next to him, caught in the same ring of shock that Illumi has called down upon himself. “I do think so.”

Silva’s gaze lifts from his son to Hisoka without any softening at all in the lines of his features. “What about you?”

Hisoka has no idea what Illumi is thinking, had not the faintest expectation of the other’s unprecedented action of actually volunteering for a mission. But Illumi is still gazing straight ahead, and Silva is looking at Hisoka like he’s waiting for the voice of reason, and Hisoka has never been one to back down from a challenge. So he lets his shoulders slump heavy out of the tension he’s accumulated over the last several days, and flashes his teeth into a brilliant smile at Illumi’s father, where it’s likely to be more appreciated than by the son standing rigid and unshifting at Hisoka’s side.

“Sure thing, daddy,” Hisoka purrs. “I’m up for anything you want to throw at us.” He cocks his head to the side, his smile drags wider over his lips. “Or throw us at. We’ll tear your big bad monster to pieces and the trainees can have fun cleaning up our mess after.” He casts his gaze sideways to flutter his lashes at Gon and Killua; the former beams back at him, as cheerful about this as Hisoka has ever seen him about anything else. Killua just frowns harder, his eyes shadowing towards something almost akin to that darkness that the mention of his name brings out in his brother, but Hisoka isn’t particularly interested in him except as a prod to Illumi and he turns away to look back to Silva once more.

Silva is frowning, his forehead creased and his mouth drawn down at the corners as he looks from Hisoka to Illumi like he’s trying to read something from the one’s mania and the other’s absolute calm. If he finds what he’s looking for it’s not enough to soften his expression, but when he finally draws a breath it carries resignation with it enough for Hisoka to relax even before the other speaks.

“Very well,” he says. “Illumi, Hisoka, you’ll be the first round of attack. You’ll have Killua and Gon as backup if you need them, just call.”

“We won’t,” Illumi says, before Hisoka can even think of answering. “Thank you.” And then he falls silent again, lapsing back into unreadable distance once more. Silva goes on speaking, a few more instructions and general information, but Hisoka barely listens to him in favor of watching the oldest Zoldyck son and trying to catch a glimpse of that weird tension underneath Illumi’s smooth-shelled exterior once more.

Even looking for it, Hisoka can’t find so much as a glimmer of emotion in Illumi’s face by the time Silva dismisses them once more.


	5. Eclipse

Hisoka is a little bit worried about the assignment. Or, at least, he would be worried, if worry were a thing he even knew to recognize as such. He and Illumi are both overworked, however blasé Illumi and teasing Hisoka were in answer to inquiries on the subject, and the fact that Illumi looks and acts like a mechanical doll doesn’t keep his body from being thoroughly, vulnerably human. But Illumi doesn’t show any sign of exhaustion in the day and half they spend on-call before the Kaiju appears, doesn’t resist eating or sleeping in the too-brief stints they claim while their partner stays alert for a call, and whatever energy motivated his outburst during Silva’s announcement shows no sign of returning. Illumi is calm, and cool, and transparent-clear as glass to every question Hisoka thinks to offer; so Hisoka passes the time via rushed meals, and too-brief dreams, and jerking off to the thought of what he’ll do to Illumi when they are both left free enough to indulge in shared distraction instead of taking it in turns. His imagination gains force as the hours pass, climbing to peaks formed by the self-restraint he hasn’t had to exert since before he partnered with Illumi and Illumi’s ever-willing existence, until by the time the call comes Hisoka is ready to spend himself on the Kaiju just for the relief of it.

Hisoka had wondered if Illumi might tense on their way to their Jaeger, if whatever thought motivated him to speak up might not make itself clear en route to actually fulfilling the mission he was so anxious to claim. But Illumi looks no different, acts no different, through the halls they stride through to the loading bay or in the process of plugging into the machine around them, and when the Drift surges deep-water high over them both it’s Hisoka’s consciousness that dominates, that steps forward to fill their minds with arousal and desire and hunger too great to make any distinction between sex or violence or hate. Illumi molds himself to Hisoka’s mind, giving way to the razor edges of the other’s psyche and accepting them as easily as he accepts the heat of the other’s cock, even when Hisoka reaches out farther to press deeper as a sort of payment for the day and a half of relative isolation they have kept from each other. Illumi gives way, easing and opening to the urging of Hisoka’s mind without hesitation, until when Hisoka finally lets his force give way there’s a smile at his lips and the comfortable span of familiarity in his thoughts.

“ _Hisoka_.” That’s Milluki’s voice, even the nasal edge on the words carrying clear to the inside of the cockpit. “ _Illumi. How’s it looking?_ ”

“Beautiful as ever,” Hisoka calls back, taking on his usual role of speaker as Illumi turns a blank stare on the panel of the viewport before him. “These suits fit like a second skin, you should really give one a try someday.”

Milluki growls frustration that crackles static into the headset. “ _Keep your mind on the mission. Is the Drift steady?_ ”

“I’m always thinking of the mission,” Hisoka purrs. “We’re as deep in each other as we can be.”

Milluki doesn’t design to respond to that with any kind of a comment at all. “ _Drop in twenty_ ,” he says instead, retreating to what distance professionalism can grant him. “ _Hold steady for fall_.” Hisoka turns his attention to the viewport in front of him -- shadowed-dark, for now, if still apparently enough to hold all of Illumi’s focused attention -- and settles himself into the indulgence of a brief fantasy, of Kaiju blue spilling over the front of the cockpit and the screaming hatred of a monster ripped apart by the brace of the gigantic metal hands that are his own, now, as much as the fingers he has curled tight around the handles of the Jaeger. Milluki is counting, his voice steady and clear in the enclosed space of the cockpit, but Hisoka isn’t really listening. He can manage a countdown on his own well enough, and he’s a lot more interested in the pilot letting Hisoka’s Drift wash out over his mind like waves on a beach.

“This’ll be fun,” Hisoka tells Illumi, speaking loud so his voice will carry over the crackle of Milluki’s around them. “We’ll be the biggest heroes on base after we take this one out.”

Illumi turns his head to look at Hisoka with as much enthusiasm as he gave to the smooth black of the cockpit window in front of them. His lashes shift through a deliberate blink, like shutters lowering and raising over shadowed windows. “That isn’t why I volunteered.”

Hisoka grins. “That’s fine,” he says. “That’s why _I’m_ doing it, anyway.” He turns to look back out the window; and then, as a thought occurs to him and idle curiosity spikes high enough to claim his voice: “Why _did_ you volunteer?”

“I thought you would know,” Illumi says, so flat on the words it’s hard for Hisoka to tell if he’s being mocked or not.

Hisoka rolls his eyes. “Of course I do,” he says. “I just love hearing your voice, darling. Why don’t you give me a hint and I’ll see if I can guess?”

Illumi shifts his head to the side. “It’s--”

“ _Drop_ ,” Milluki’s voice cuts in, sharp with something Hisoka thinks is awfully close to vicious satisfaction, and the structure of the conversation falls away at the same time as the support vises at the sides of the Jaeger. Hisoka’s stomach falls, toppling free of his control as his instinct responds to the inevitable freefall; it’s habit more than anything else that tightens his grip on the handles under his palms and flexes his thighs against the latches bracing him in place against the pedals on his side of the cockpit. On the other side Illumi is doing the same, adjusting his weight with as much grace as a cat turning itself over from a fall, until when the Jaeger lands heavily in the ocean rendered knee-deep by their sheer size their footing is as stable as if they were soldered in place. Hisoka grins with the satisfaction of the force, the jolt running up his legs to give his existence a greater immediacy than he has found for himself before, and when he straightens to look out the viewport at the rippling ocean before them the anticipation of what is very shortly to come has fully eclipsed his brief curiosity into the space of Illumi’s obscure inner life.

“Alright,” Hisoka purrs, leaning forward against the suit bracing his shoulders to cant their Jaeger in too, to draw Illumi into the careful balance of their weight shifting up onto the balls of their feet. “Where’s the party, Milluki?”

“ _Straight ahead of your present location_ ,” Milluki crackles over the communicator. “ _Keep on as you are and you won’t miss it._ ” There’s the sound of something clattering on the other end of the line: a soda can, maybe, or a package of snacks dragging closer against the receiver of the communicator. “ _With the size of it you couldn’t even with your eyes closed_.”

“Big boy,” Hisoka says, rolling the words over on shivering pleasure. “Let’s go put him in his place.” And they step forward, Illumi shifting into the stride with the effortless grace that is all Hisoka has ever known him to bring to the Drift. The Jaeger creaks around them, metal screeching as their joined movement bears them forward, and Hisoka fixes his attention out the viewport to scan the horizon for the first trace of the opponent that they have declared as their enemy.

Milluki isn’t wrong. Hisoka can see the shape clear the horizon within the first half-dozen strides he and Illumi take through the crashing waves of the ocean rendered no more than thigh-high by the sheer scale of the metal exoskeleton they’re in. The crest stands out first, a sweeping arc lining the length of the Kaiju’s spine, but it’s hardly submerged; even in the deep waters from which it’s rising it has no more than half of its body under the surface as the rest of it rises in a curve of shadowy bulk from the blue water spilling around and off it. Hisoka keeps moving forward, striding into the space between their Jaeger and the oncoming creature, until when they’re still several seconds away he stops, bringing the weight of those metal legs under him into locked-out resistance to hold them steady against the first surge of the Kaiju breaking over them.

“Let’s do this,” Hisoka growls, feeling the words rasp in the back of his throat more with the resonance of heat than of any real fear. He spreads his arms wide, flexing his grip back to crack the joints of his shoulders into pliant grace; Illumi follows his motion without any instruction at all, arching himself into the stretch with the languid ease that gives him the seeming of a contortionist calmly forming the shape of his body to his will. Hisoka turns his head to flash a grin at Illumi, one which his partner returns with an expressionless stare that makes Hisoka laugh with all the delight of building adrenaline. He turns back to the viewport, extending his arms to creak their Jaeger into the bracing hold with which they’ll take the first blow; and before them the water comes alive to surge up and at them.

The Kaiju is enormous. Hisoka was expecting that, had adjusted his expectations based on what he has seen of Category Fours and the more common Threes that he and Illumi take down more-or-less regularly, but even Hisoka’s abundance of imagination failed to take in the scale of the monster rising before them. Their Jaeger is gigantic, a monster of steel and electricity that requires its own power core just to sustain any kind of forward motion: the Kaiju now rising before them dwarfs it even with its frontmost pair of legs still under the water surging around them. It’s a bright thing, painted over with streaks of vivid blue and glowing light that flickers and skates under its skin as if in imitation of the whirring glow of their own reactor core; when it unhinges an enormous jaw to roar threat Hisoka can see the shimmer of light down its throat as if to paint a false landing path for stray airplanes. It is enormous, cripplingly terrifying on some deep-down, instinctive level, and Hisoka wants nothing so much as he wants to tear it apart.

“Come on, honey,” he says, speaking more to himself than to the partner next to him, connected so close to the rumble of heat in Hisoka’s thoughts as to render speech duplicative if not outright useless. He shifts his arm back to cock the tension of the power amplifier built into the shoulder; Illumi’s grip tightens on the support next to him, his body tilting forward to brace them into place in expectation of the recoil. Hisoka lifts his arm high, drawing back for a punch with the slow-motion grace that follows from the burden of the Jaeger clasping close around them, and when he swings his arm forward the blow sinks solidly into the gaping maw of the creature roaring resistance at them. The metal knuckles of their Jaeger’s fist slam into the structure of jaw and teeth, that aspect of the Kaiju’s physiology built along the closest thing to human lines, and there’s a satisfying give under the blow as bone and cartilage creak and shatter under their fist. Hisoka moans from the depths of his chest, giving voice to the surge of arousal that quivers through him with as much strength as the recoil of the blow that Illumi braced them steady against. Illumi straightens, taking over the motion of their Jaeger to slide their arm back from that first testing blow, and Hisoka takes the opportunity to hang his head forward and breathe deep, ragged inhales around the satisfaction of the violence.

“God,” he groans, and lifts his head to grin out the viewport again. “I _love_ this job.” And he moves again, taking over the action of the Jaeger’s other arm to offer another blow while Illumi is still drawing them back from the first. It’s not enough to knock the Kaiju off-balance -- from the rumble in the back of its throat Hisoka thinks it’s more angry than anything else -- but there’s another one of those satisfying _crunch_ es as feedback, and Hisoka’s grin is spreading wider across his face as the thrill of the fight starts to catch hold of him and drag him forward. He’s leaning in, tipping their Jaeger forward as if to draw an answering attack from the creature growling before them, and if Illumi isn’t trembling with the same barely-restrained enthusiasm Hisoka is feeling he’s angling forward just the same to offer himself to the same taunting excitement Hisoka is bleeding into all his veins.

“Come on,” Hisoka says, turning over the words in the back of his throat as the Kaiju flails backwards, thudding through a motion that jolts up the whole metal length of their Jaeger’s legs. “Come on, come on, come at us, show me what you’ve got, sweetheart!” The Kaiju shakes its head, looking like nothing so much as a grotesquely oversized dog shaking off water, or a boxer shedding the effect of a blow; and then it tips itself back, shifting some portion of its enormous size over braced-out legs at its back half, and it starts to rise.

The movement goes on for a long time. Hisoka is watching out the viewport, tracking the shift of iridescent flickering through the bulletproof surface, but as the Kaiju shifts he and Illumi have to rock their weight back, have to straighten their stance just to look up and track the thing’s progress. It surges over them, high, higher, impossibly enormous in the shadow it forms against the sky, and still it grows, back feet still firmly on the ground to speak to the full scope of its size and the danger it presents. It’s enough to open Hisoka’s eyes wide, to at least tighten if not strip the smirk at his lips, until finally the inhale Illumi takes next to him is startling for how separate it seems from the reality that has come over them.

“Let’s go,” Illumi says, speaking aloud while his thoughts hold steel-steady, utterly unflappable and cool as the clear ocean around them. Hisoka can feel the muscle of his thigh flex, can track the action of the other’s motion to urge them forward, and he answers at once, moving to match himself to Illumi’s lead instead. His smile is widening, spreading even as it strains at the corners of his mouth and cracks bloody at the edges of his lips, but he has his partner with him, and his Jaeger around him, and they are going to take out the vast scope of the monster and be victorious, they will prove their power and their strength and their _presence_ in the blood and brutality of combat -- and the foot of their Jaeger lands hard in the shadow of the Kaiju, the span of the thing’s head crests up to blot out the sun, and the Drift flashes blue.

Hisoka’s eyes blow open wide, his whole body tightens against the sudden, unbearable force of electricity coursing through his body. There’s a sound from next to him, a sharp inhale run ragged on abrupt emotion, on something too sharp to express itself as anything but pain; and then Hisoka’s vision vanishes, blacking out to something darker than black, an endless void reaching out to swallow him as surely as the Kaiju’s grasping claws are stretching out towards them. He can’t feel himself, he can’t place his body and can’t feel his face and can’t frame his name; and then the world jolts, his existence skips, and he’s dragging a breath from air saturated with the acrid tang of pine needles.

Hisoka has no idea where he is. There are trees all around him, endless shadows rising up to the crystalline blue of a sky overhead; the sky is the only familiar detail, the only thing with anything like a relation to the world he just came from. It’s been long years since he was in a forest, and he’s sure he’s never been in any as lush and velvety green as this one; and then there’s a shout, a high voice crying out “ _Killua_!” with enough effort to skid out on the edge of shrill, and when Hisoka turns his head a small form runs right past him, sprinting with the excessive speed of very young children more interested in the moment than any kind of pacing. The boy is small for the speed he’s showing, hardly tall enough to come up to Hisoka’s hip as he darts past, but the tangle of white hair haloing his head is unmistakable, even without the name to identify him. Hisoka stares after him, shocked out of himself by this impossible hallucination of a much-younger person than the pilot trainee he has passed in the halls; and then there’s the crunch of a branch giving way, and when Hisoka looks back Illumi almost topples into his arms.

It _is_ Illumi. That Hisoka is absolutely certain about, although the person before him is inches shy of Hisoka’s height and has hair only halfway down his back instead of brushing all the way to the middle of his thighs. That face is too familiar, those arched cheekbones and that ivory-white skin and even those huge, dark eyes, although there is some depth to them, right now, as Illumi strides forward in pursuit of his errant sibling. His hair shifts with the wind of his passing, sweeping out into a wave as he steps past Hisoka, and it’s the curl of one heavy lock brushing unresisted through Hisoka’s wrist that breaks the spell of Hisoka’s confusion and tells him what must be happening, for the first time in all the years he and Illumi have been partners.

“ _Shit_ ,” Hisoka spits, blurting the word before he can think to wonder if Illumi’s memory-self will be able to hear him. Illumi’s moving away, striding forward into the forest after his little brother, and he doesn’t turn at the sound of Hisoka’s voice, which answers that question, although not the greater one. Hisoka turns his head up to grimace at the sky overhead and cups his hands around his mouth for a shout. “ _Illumi_!” There’s no response, of course, no more than there would be if he were shouting to the blue of the real sky overhead, and Hisoka drops his hands and turns to look after Illumi’s younger form with a twist of irritation at his lips. This is the Drift, it must be, gone wild on some deep-buried fragment of memory Hisoka had never guessed was there, but while they’re plugged into the interface Hisoka can’t break free, can’t wrench himself loose of Illumi’s recollection any more than Illumi can himself. They’re both trapped here, lost in the recesses of Illumi’s mind, and that leaves Hisoka very little choice but to see this path out to its end.

He doesn’t entirely mind. There’s curiosity in him, flickering hot at the back of his thoughts as he turns to jog after younger Illumi on his way through the trees; they are in immediate danger, certainly, this isn’t the time to get lost in the Drift, but this is also the closest thing Hisoka has ever had to a glimpse into the inner workings of his partner’s well-defended mind, and there’s a near-vicious want for more in him, a desire to reach and seek out more knowledge now that he has made it past the barricade that lllumi has held with such deliberate force for all their time as partners. Hisoka slips through the trees in Illumi’s wake, following his partner and his brother with steps that pass with even more perfect silence than the dancer-delicate press of Illumi’s feet to the branches underfoot, until he’s standing just a few feet back when Illumi finally catches up to his brother in time to seize the back of his collar and keep from from sliding down a steep ledge that appears almost before his feet.

“I told you to slow down,” Illumi says with less heat on the words than is probably deserved, given how near Killua’s miss was. “You don’t see this coming up until you’re already at it.”

“I’m fine!” Killua protests, half-flailing as Illumi draws him back to set on his feet. “I knew it was there, I wasn’t going to fall!”

“You were,” Illumi says without any softening of his tone even for Killua’s childish protest. “You need to be more careful.” He’s turned away from the ledge behind them, leaning forward to drop to a knee against the soft of the pine needles while he brushes against the dust and leaves that have collected on Killua’s shirt; Hisoka can see the focus behind his eyes as he turns his attention on the task before him instead of the surroundings behind him. It’s Killua who keeps looking around, turning wide blue eyes on everything around them, and it’s Killua who lifts a hand to point, to chirp “Look at the pet!” with simple enthusiasm.

Illumi’s frown of confusion curves in time with Hisoka’s. “What?” he says, and starts to turn. “What are you talking about?” And then he turns, and a shadow materializes out of nowhere, granted substance by the shock in Illumi’s memory that didn’t allow the existence of the thing until he saw it. Hisoka takes a step back, falling away from the lip of the cliff that must drop straight off into the ocean, somewhere long lengths below; because it’s a Kaiju looming up over the edge of the cliff now, clawed feet tearing at the ground and enormous, misshapen head looming before the two boys cowering at the edge of the cliff. Its head veers, swaying from side to side as it tries to track its surroundings with vision intended for some eerie underwater blue more than the crisp brilliance of the living day; but it’s clear from the look on Illumi’s face that he doesn’t know this, and there’s no way for Hisoka to convey any comfort to that effect even if he knew what to say. Illumi’s eyes blow enormous, the dark of his pupils sweeping out to swallow up all the delicate lighting of the rest of his expression, and when he moves it’s to clutch at the back of Killua’s head with one hand and press his other palm to muffle his brother’s speech. Killua struggles against Illumi’s hold, kicking hard against the fallen pine needles coating the ground around them, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The Kaiju is looming larger, sweeping up to impossible height before the huddled brothers, its head sweeping out to block out the blue of the sky, to eclipse the illumination of the sun, and Illumi’s eyes are going wider and wider, his expression slack with fear too intense to allow space for more than the silent tremor of a prey animal. He looks terrified, young and frightened beyond anything Hisoka has ever seen on his face before, and Hisoka’s feet move him forward, striding in towards the Kaiju-memory and the shadow of his partner caught within it.

“Illumi,” Hisoka says, snapping over the other’s name with force as he steps in through the memory of Killua clasped in Illumi’s hold to drop to his knees before the other’s sightless stare. “ _Illumi_. Listen to me. This isn’t real. _It’s not real_ .” Hisoka waves a hand through the space before Illumi’s blown-wide eyes but there’s no more response than if he weren’t there at all. Hisoka has never been so thoroughly ignored before, even when facing Illumi’s distraction or blank absence of thought; he sets his jaw tight against rising irritation and reaches out to wave his insubstantial hand directly through the line of Illumi’s memory-face. “Come on Illumi, you frigid bastard, this isn’t you, snap _out_ of it. We have a Kaiju to murder, your little traumatic flashback is going to have to _wait_.”

Illumi’s expression hardens, his mouth tightens. It’s so perfectly in time with Hisoka’s speech that for a moment he thinks his words got through, that he’s managed to get the attention of his present-moment partner who has dragged them both into this memory fugue. But when Illumi pushes Killua away to fall to the ground behind him his gaze is on the creature behind Hisoka rather than on Hisoka himself, and when he surges to his feet to stand between the monster and his brother the motion still carries the startling speed of a remembered event instead of a present one. Hisoka growls and reaches out for Illumi again, instinct making a bid for physical restraint he can’t actually offer in the space of the Drift, and when Illumi screams with panicked viciousness and flings himself forward he passes right through Hisoka before him. Hisoka flinches, ducking his head and cringing away from the impact with the nonexistence of the memory around him, and when he opens his eyes again the forest is gone, the shadows of Illumi and Killua’s childhood evaporated like they were never there. He’s back in the Jaeger, plugged into the flickering electricity of his pilot suit and staring out the viewport at the shape of the Kaiju looming over them with Illumi next to him; and it’s then that Illumi screams, and Hisoka realizes Illumi didn’t come back with him at all.

Illumi isn’t looking at Hisoka, when the other’s attention swings around to him. His head is turned up, his gaze fixed on the creature in front of them, but his eyes are so wide and his expression so blank that Hisoka is sure he isn’t seeing this present moment any more than he saw Hisoka in the space of the Drift he dragged them into. He’s lost, trapped in his own mind without even the support of his Drift partner there to guide him back out of it, and when Hisoka lunges against the weight of the suit around him he runs up against it as if it’s so much metal instead of the extension of his body it always felt before.

“ _lIlumi_ ,” he shouts, his voice skidding out into the heights of frustrated intensity. “Illumi, _get back here_.” But Illumi isn’t listening, or maybe doesn’t hear at all, and when the Jaeger lurches forward Hisoka is dragged along with it, a prisoner of the metal instead of the pilot of it. Hisoka pulls against the guidance mechanisms that have become restraints with Illumi’s seizure of the Drift from him, but the metal is impossibly heavy without the Drift interface to ease the connection and all his efforts do no good. Illumi is panting at the inside of his helmet, his breath so hot and heavy it’s fogging the interior surface, but Hisoka can still see the dark of a nosebleed trickling over porcelain skin to smear and stain his parted lips as the effect of piloting solo taxes the limits of Illumi’s physical endurance. His arms flex, the Jaeger shifts around them, and Hisoka is borne forward by Illumi’s force into another blow, another swinging punch of a metal fist into the side of the Kaiju’s jaw. The blow merits a roar, this time, and a jerking pull back that seems to speak to some real damage, but Illumi doesn’t show any gratification at having successfully landed his punch. He just drags them forward, forcing into another step to bring them far too close for any kind of logic as he reaches out to clutch a desperate grip against the Kaiju’s head. The Kaiju thrashes, protesting this hold, but Illumi’s fingers tighten bloodless-white at the grip of his piloting controls and they hang on, even as the creature’s movement drags their Jaeger to the side and threatens to knock them off-balance entirely.

Hisoka is still yelling. It’s not that it’s doing any good, nor that he really expects it to achieve anything of note; Illumi is well past hearing, and the volume Hisoka’s hitting is rasping in his throat in a way he’s sure he’ll be feeling for days, if he lives that long. But there’s nothing else he can do, trapped in his side of the interface as he is, and it might not help anything to scream a tirade of curses at Illumi but it makes him feel even minimally better, which is as much as he can do at the moment. He’s drawing deep, pulling on all his invention and experience at once to throw vitriol at the co-pilot who has left him behind as thoroughly as reality, and then there’s movement on the other side of the viewport and Hisoka’s attention is pulled up to track the motion of the Kaiju instead of the nonresponse of Illumi’s blank stare.

The creature is moving. Illumi still has their Jaeger’s hold tight against the side of its neck, is still ostensibly holding the thing in place; but its shoulders are shifting, caving in and reforming like it’s changing its shape before their very eyes. Hisoka watches for a breath, seeing muscle and bone shift and pull under that luminescent flesh to make Illumi’s unshakeable grip useless; then he looks back, swinging his attention to Illumi again as he shouts with greater force even than what he offered for his curses before. “Illumi, _Illumi_ , snap out of it, it’s getting free.” Illumi’s lashes flicker, dipping over his gaze as his focus stays pinned out in front of him, and Hisoka redoubles his motion and volume at once. “Babe, sweetheart, focus, come back to this, you can have a meltdown _after_ we win.” Illumi’s head dips forward, angling like he can’t manage to hold himself properly upright; then his helmet shifts, swinging with the motion of his head shaking, and when he turns to look at Hisoka there’s something like attention behind his eyes again, clear even behind the shine of light off his visor.

“Hisoka,” Illumi says, speaking slow like he’s working over the words; and then, “Oh,” like he’s just realizing where he is and what he’s doing.

Hisoka huffs a breath of what feels startlingly close to relief. “You back?” he asks, mostly rhetorically. “We’ve got a Kaiju to kill.”

“Yes,” Illumi says, ducking his head forward into a nod as he turns to look out the viewport, and there’s a _crash_ so immediate and overwhelming that Hisoka’s mind jolts white with the shock of the impact. For a moment he’s out of his body; for a moment he thinks he might be dead. Then there’s the wail of an alarm, an endless, shrieking note of electronic panic that seems to stab into Hisoka’s head, and when he blinks himself back into clarity it’s to stare straight out the side of the cockpit at the blue sky of a distant horizon. It’s hard to see it in spite of the clear weather and the bright air, thanks to spots that fail to clear even when Hisoka blinks hard against them; and it’s then that his impact-scattered thoughts coalesce, and he realizes what he’s seeing as the spray of blood across his visor slides to trail paths of scarlet over his vision.

“Illumi,” Hisoka says, speaking softly to the pickup for the microphone built into his helmet. “Babe? Illumi?” There’s no response, not over the crackle of the headset locked around his head or from the side of the half-destroyed cockpit, where there is no more sign of Hisoka’s partner than the frayed ends of torn-loose wires and an arc of blood curving away across the side of the space behind Hisoka. It’s that that has smeared over his vision, that is distracting his gaze when he tries to make sense of it; and then Hisoka turns his head to look out the shattered viewport, and the Kaiju before him tosses its head to throw aside the enormous chunk of metal it just ripped free of the Jaeger. The shape of it curves through the air, arcing away to splash forgotten into the depths of the ocean; Hisoka watches it fall, watches the blue of the water close up over it before he lifts his head to turn his attention to the Kaiju twisting back towards the still Jaeger he’s still caught within.

“ _Hisoka!_ ” The voice isn’t Illumi’s; Illumi has never mustered anything like Milluki’s usual whining frustration, much less the shrill anxiety lacing the other’s voice now. “ _What’s happening?_ ”

Hisoka reaches out to brace his hands against the grips on his side of the cockpit, the half of the Jaeger controls still in place. “We’re fucked,” he says succinctly. The controls are heavy under his grip, they fight the motion of his arms and legs until he imagines he can feel his bones creaking and his muscles tearing free with every action he forces from them. He keeps pushing anyway, lurching forward until the Jaeger around him takes a step forced by his own will instead of one shared out between two pilots, guided by no more than his own mental strength and physical resistance. The back of his throat tastes like iron; when he drags a breath his nose trickles heat over his face and across his lips.

“You’d better send in the backup,” Hisoka says into the mic, hearing his words rasp wet on the blood filling his sinuses and starting to spread out to haze his eyes. “If you want to bring anyone back alive from this I’ll need someone to take over from me real soon.” And he cuts the connection without waiting for Milluki’s questions or panic either one. Hisoka doesn’t have time for either of them, not when his whole body is protesting the effort of forcing his Jaeger into motion without Illumi there next to him, and he wants to get off at least one blow before his inevitable collapse.

He manages three, as it turns out. The first two land off-center, ill-aimed or half-dodged by the Kaiju’s demonstration of surprising speed in answer to Hisoka’s efforts; it’s the third one, swung as Hisoka feels his shoulder dislocating with the effort and his breathing spitting red against the inside of his helmet to match Illumi’s smeared over the outside, that finally does some real damage. The Kaiju careens to the side, knocked off-balance by the force as its enormous arc of teeth glisten vivid blue with the spill of blood Hisoka’s blow demanded, and Hisoka manages a smile that goes unseen by anyone at all before the recoil slams into his injured shoulder, and bones gives way with a _crack_ loud against the inside of his helmet, and his overtaxed consciousness finally disintegrates to drop him into the same endless black as the ocean that swallowed Illumi.


	6. Substance

Hisoka spends the next month in the hospital.

It’s not out of consideration for his own injuries. Those are minimal, on a relative scale: there is damage to his body, of course, dislocated joints and a shattered arm and bruises and scratches patterning the whole of his bare skin, but in the grand scheme of things it is far, far less injury than Hisoka thinks he probably ought to have expected to sustain. It’s almost entirely thanks to Gon and Killua’s rapid response in answer to Milluki’s demand for them to support Hisoka and Illumi’s failed Jaeger that Hisoka still lives and breathes, he’s told within the first hour after waking to anything like true consciousness, and he’s reminded of that in turn by Silva, and Milluki, and Kalluto, as if the entire Zoldyck family has taken it in shifts to drill the point in question into his head. Even the heroes themselves make a token appearance, Gon bubbling over with cheerful optimism as if he and Hisoka are long-time friends instead of something closer to rivals and Killua lingering behind him like a shadow with more concern in his gaze for his partner than for the injured pilot right in front of him. But Hisoka’s interest in Killua has only ever been tied to Illumi’s, and the intrigue of Gon’s untested potential has dissipated with the latest proof of his true skill; and Hisoka’s thoughts are no more on the pair in front of him than they linger on any of the shocked or judgmental statements he receives from the rest of the Zoldycks.

As it turns out, there’s really only one member of that family that can hold Hisoka’s attention, and he’s demanding the full of it at present.

Illumi was retrieved after the conclusion of the fight between the backup Jaeger and the oversized Kaiju saw its end. Hisoka hears about that secondhand too; for his purposes, it’s enough that when he wakes up in the hospital there’s a bed adjacent to his, sheathed in the cover of a hanging curtain to block it from view but with the occupant so coma-still it’s clear to know who it is without being told. Besides, Hisoka imagines he can feel Illumi’s thoughts in the air, as if that catastrophic Drift failure tore down walls that have been left as rubble in the other’s persistent unconsciousness, as if Hisoka might be able to speak the words of Illumi’s mind if he paid enough attention to the murmur of thought in the back of his skull. He doesn’t, and he can’t, of course; it would take a full Drift interface to achieve anything like that, and no one is willing to take the risk of letting him Drift himself into a coma of his own as well. But he thinks about it, idly, like working over the rough edges of a well-worn fantasy, and as soon as he has a free moment from the nurses and doctors hovering around him he struggles to his feet and limps his way over the distance of the floor so he can slide around the edge of the curtain and into Illumi’s bed alongside him.

Illumi doesn’t respond to Hisoka’s presence. Hisoka imagined he might, in a kind of daydreamy hallucination of a fairy-tale ending, as if those dark lashes might rise to grant Illumi a measure of focus back on Hisoka’s face just for the press of the other’s hand. But Illumi lies still, as unmoving and passive as he has ever been, and even the experimental kiss Hisoka presses to the corner of the other’s mouth gives him nothing but unresisting soft pressing against his lips in return. Hisoka is left to heave a sigh, and slide himself down against the edge of the bed, and align himself to the shape of Illumi’s body in such a way that he neither disrupts the drip of the other’s IV nor presses weight against the ache of his arm wrapped to heavy stillness in his cast.

The nurses don’t like it. They order Hisoka back to his bed, insist on his departure from Illumi’s, plead for the danger his presence might do to his unconscious partner; when they finally call in the doctor to demand Hisoka leave Hisoka tightens his grip around Illumi’s waist and asks if they really want to pry them apart by force. Perhaps they really are concerned about the damage that could be done to either or both of them if they were to try any such thing; perhaps it’s some hope of effect from allowing Illumi’s longterm Drift partner such close access to him that stays their insistence. In any case, Hisoka is granted permission to remain, or at least an end to the protests to his presence, and he settles himself in against the narrow edge of the bed and turns his face to press into the weight of Illumi’s dark hair while he begins the uncertain, unformed process of waiting for Illumi to wake up.

He doesn’t leave. For the first few days the nurses ask if he wants to go back to his own bed, if he wouldn’t be more comfortable with a little more space to himself; after a week all but the most persistent have stopped asking, and by the end of the month no one questions Hisoka at all. His meals are brought to him, by the nurses or their assistants or sometimes by Kalluto, ostensibly coming to visit his brother even if he spends the whole time speaking with Hisoka. Barring that last Hisoka has no visitors at all, any more than Illumi does, and he’s left to pillow his head against Illumi’s narrow shoulder and wind his fingers through the long dark of the other’s hair and let the hours slip past without anyone’s counting.

The doctor offers no kind of a prognosis. Hisoka hears her speaking to Silva occasionally, both murmuring in low enough voices that he couldn’t hear the words even if he were making the attempt, but the set expressions on the faces of everyone who visits or comes in to check Illumi’s unchanging, unresponsive vital signs speaks well enough to the lack of any kind of expectation. Illumi could wake up at any moment, could have stirred to consciousness that first day; he could lie still for years, held to life by the machines around him more than by his own will. He might never wake at all, might spend the rest of his existence wandering through whatever lost recollections he has found for himself; but even that thought isn’t terribly alarming for Hisoka, though he’s sure others might expect it to be. It doesn’t make a difference, in the end. Illumi is here, however still and unresponsive he may be; and so Hisoka will be here too, as long as Illumi is, regardless of how many days or months or years that spans. It’s the memory of the empty cockpit that chills Hisoka’s blood more thoroughly than the possibility of Illumi spending the rest of his life as the beautiful doll he has often seemed; so long as he is together with his Drift partner, Hisoka doesn’t care what they are or aren’t doing.

It’s especially quiet in the mornings. Hisoka has become used to the peace, or at least the illusion of it: because of course the war against the Kaiju continues on the other side of the Wall, Jaegers are constantly being built and damaged and repaired and reworked as quickly as new trainees can become veteran teams to pilot them. Hisoka has no illusions about his present situation; he is being left alone more for the impossibility of anyone functionally piloting with him than out of concern for his present mental state. But he doesn’t need a new partner, not when he still has his real one held in the curve of his arm, and the fact that Illumi is still and motionless makes no difference at all. Hisoka thinks he would deliberately sabotage a Drift with someone else, even if a partner willing to deal with the idiosyncrasies he brings to his Drift  could be found, and so he and Illumi are left to themselves, with no more motion in the whole of the silent infirmary but the slow work of Hisoka’s fingers stroking over the inches of Illumi’s hair under his hand.

The movement is minor, when it comes. There is no grand revelation, no startled gasp of an inhale; there’s just a head shifting, a lock of hair sliding as Illumi tips in against Hisoka next to him. His hair drags against Hisoka’s touch, pulled taut by the other’s hold where it has been only unresisting weight before, and when Hisoka tips his head up to look Illumi’s lashes are lifting over the blank dark of his eyes. He stares at the ceiling for a moment, looking as calm as if he’s just waking in the span of their bed instead of the hospital room that has been his resting place for the last span of weeks; and then he turns his head down to meet Hisoka’s upturned gaze.

Hisoka twists the corner of his mouth up onto a grin. “Hey there, beautiful,” he purrs. “Decided to come back to the land of the living?”

Illumi blinks at him. “What happened?”

Hisoka shifts his weight at the bed underneath him so he can push himself up onto one elbow and get a better view of Illumi’s face. Illumi’s lashes dip as he moves, his gaze following Hisoka’s motion without any visible difficulty in holding to this one point of focus. “You got lost in the Drift,” Hisoka says. “Pulled me in after you, for a minute, before the connection broke entirely and you had the Jaeger to yourself.” When Hisoka sits up entirely the sheet tucked carefully around Illumi’s shoulders pulls down at one corner to bare the pattern of the hospital gown draped around his body; Hisoka reaches out to toy with the corner of it as he shifts his weight back to draw up over his knees. “When the Kaiju landed a hit it tore off your half of the cockpit and you with it. I took over the Jaeger as long as I could.” He lifts his arm to gesture with the cast formed around it as he braces his other hand at the bed alongside Illumi’s waist. “Broke my arm getting a hit in for you. But I still would have ended up in a Kaiju belly except for your brother and Gon coming in to save the day.”

“Killua,” Illumi says, with some flicker of the mania he showed before. “He’s okay?”

“He’s fine,” Hisoka soothes, and leans against his bracing hand so he can swing his leg up and over Illumi so he can straddle the other’s hips. Illumi’s lashes dip with the weight of Hisoka settling on top of him but he doesn’t give voice to any kind of protest or pain, even when Hisoka rocks himself backwards to settle the closer against the other’s body. “He and Gon probably have the run of the base, with how convinced everyone is that they’re heroes.” Hisoka lifts both shoulders into a shrug. “I suppose they are, too, after saving our lives.”

Illumi gazes up at Hisoka. “Did they?”

Hisoka shrugs again. “Sure,” he says, as dismissive as he can make the acknowledgment. He tips himself forward towards Illumi in front of him, letting the corner of his mouth pull up into a smirk as he does. “Let’s not waste time talking about them, though.” Hisoka presses close enough that he can bump his nose to Illumi’s cheek, can take a breath against the heat of the other’s skin. “I’ve been staying at your side for over a month waiting for you. Don’t I deserve a reward for good behavior?”

“We’re in the hospital,” Illumi says, but he doesn’t turn his head away from the possibility of Hisoka’s lips against his. “A nurse could come in at any time.”

“That makes it more exciting,” Hisoka suggests, coupling the words with a shift of his hips to fit friction to speech. “Don’t you think?” Illumi shifts under the thin sheets and reaches to brace slender fingers into a startlingly strong grip at Hisoka’s hip, and Hisoka purrs a laugh and stills to the urging of Illumi’s touch.

“Prude,” he says, with more affection than judgment on the word, and turns his head to nuzzle in against the side of Illumi’s jaw. “At least let me have a proper kiss. It’s been such a long time since I had the chance.”

“You had chances,” Illumi says as Hisoka urges against the side of his head to breathe against the heat under his ear. “You were here with me the whole time, weren’t you?”

“I was,” Hisoka agrees without even making a sketch of shame for his voice. “It’s just not the same when you don’t respond, though.” He turns his head to press a fully-formed kiss to the side of Illumi’s cheek; the other’s lashes dip, tilting down towards shadow, and Hisoka smiles at the corner of Illumi’s mouth. “Come on, sweetheart, give us a kiss.”

Illumi turns his head to the side. It’s a small movement, hardly more than the weight of his head shifting against the pillow, but as close as Hisoka is urging against him it’s as good as an overt invitation. Hisoka claims Illumi’s mouth with his, pressing his lips close against the other’s, and lingers in the heat of the friction until Illumi parts his lips to make a silent suggestion towards yet more. Hisoka licks in against his tongue, tasting the strange, antiseptic smell of the hospital that seems to have seeped itself into Illumi’s very existence, as if he might be made more of medication than blood and bone at the moment; and then, at the farthest reaches, he lays claim to the almost-sweet edge of Illumi himself, something cool and dark as blood at the back of his tongue. Hisoka can feel something unwind in his spine, as if some impossible tension has given way to sag him heavy atop the bed where he’s pinning Illumi down to the thin of the hospital mattress; it feels like the plug of their Jaeger slotting into place, like the blue of the Drift closing over his head for a moment before he can surge himself to the surface. For a moment they stay like that, sharing the taste of each other’s mouths and bleeding into the heat of each other’s bodies, until finally Hisoka draws himself together, and back, and eases his mouth away from the deliberate give of Illumi’s beneath him.

“Don’t ever leave me alone like that again,” he says, speaking softly enough that the words sound more an endearment than the promise-threat they are. “Whenever I go into the Drift I want you there with me, Illumi.”

Illumi looks up at Hisoka for a long moment. His eyes are clear, his gaze focused with no indication of the coma in which he has been wandering for so long; the light catches at the dark, flickering as if off the surface of a pond to disguise whatever may be lurking underneath. It’s only when Illumi’s lashes dip to flutter over his eyes that Hisoka can see the suggestion of endless depths, the beginnings of that ocean-deep space that Illumi carries so well-hidden from even the prying grasp of the Drift. “Is that a marriage proposal?”

Hisoka flashes all of his teeth in the white of a grin. “I knew we were compatible after all,” he says, and reaches to touch Illumi’s hair with the fingers of his cast-wrapped arm. “What’s your answer?”

Illumi doesn’t color, doesn’t so much as bat an eye. “Can’t you tell from the Drift?”

Hisoka’s grin breaks open into a laugh loud enough to splash itself to an echo off the walls of the hospital room around him. “Of course I can,” he says, and leans in to settle his arm at the support of the mattress. “I just wanted to do things officially, this time.”

Illumi hums in the back of his throat. “Yes,” he says. “I can see that.”

“I knew you would,” Hisoka says, and leans in to nuzzle against Illumi’s cheek again so he can breathe heat off the pale of the other’s skin. “No one understands me like you, darling.”

Illumi takes a breath, the sound soft but clear with how near Hisoka’s ear is to his lips. “Hisoka.”

“Mm,” Hisoka purrs. “Yes.” And he lifts his head to turn in and press his mouth close against the give of Illumi’s soft-parted lips. Illumi’s lashes fall, darkening the unreadable shade of his eyes, but Hisoka doesn’t mind. He’s tasting the subtleties of Illumi’s mouth, and the shift of his body, and the print of his fingertips, drinking in the ambrosia of Illumi against him and under him once more.

It’s good to have his partner back at last.


	7. Align

It’s another week before they are cleared to return to their quarters. Hisoka only remains in the infirmary because of Illumi’s presence there, after all, and while Illumi took an array of his own hurts in their last fight the worst of those was the head injury that left him so unresponsive for so long. The rest of his bruises and the handful of cracked ribs that he took from the Kaiju’s tearing blow to his side of the cockpit have healed in part or full in the weeks that passed with him so still and silent in his hospital bed, and the last span of days in the infirmary are spent more in running tests for the doctor to frown at than doing anything more valuable that Hisoka can tell. When they finally let Illumi out of bed he can stand on his own feet, even if his balance is so deliberate it speaks loud to his focus on it, and from that demonstration of relative health it’s only the span of another day and a half before one of the nurses arrives with a change of clothes to replace Illumi’s hospital gown and strict orders for as much rest as can be achieved for the next month for them both.

Neither of them are cleared for combat again, and Hisoka can’t guess when they will be: it will be a matter of rebuilding their Jaeger at the very least, he’s sure, and that’s setting aside the catastrophic effects of their failed Drift. There will be dozens of training runs for them both, and more all-but-training drops to pick off the smallest of the Kaiju that rise up from the depths of the water until Silva is convinced of their suitability to return to the front lines; they might even work through a solo or joint session with one of the overworked psychologists assigned to support those pilots who fall out of Drift or struggle to claim it in the first place. It doesn’t matter. That’s all for later, Hisoka thinks, when his arm is healed and Illumi has reclaimed some measure of his old effortless grace in movement; and right now, for he thinks the first time since he signed up with the program, he is more interested in making it to the bedroom than to the cockpit.

Illumi doesn’t hesitate in following Hisoka’s lead. He keeps pace with the other through the hallways, walking in time with Hisoka’s stride even when Hisoka forgets to ease his motion to a gentler pace than a rush to bear them over the distance as rapidly as possible, and when Hisoka looks sideways at Illumi through his lashes the focus of the other’s eyes down the hallway looks more intent than idle. It’s Hisoka who unlocks their door and pushes hard at the handle to force it open, but Illumi slides past him as quickly as the entrance gives way, bearing himself halfway across the room before Hisoka has even stepped through the doorway. Illumi reaches for the hem of his shirt before Hisoka has started to push the door shut and is stripping it up over his head as the latch clicks shut, and Hisoka reaches to turn the lock over without looking away from Illumi unfastening the front of his pants so he can slip them down and off the endless length of his pale legs. His skin still bears some of the deeper bruises from their fight, fading purples and greens deep at the muscle of his thigh and patterned to vivid stripes over the raised pattern of his ribs close beneath his skin; when he turns the line of his spine is printed over with the hexagonal pattern of his connection to his pilot suit, where the too-much electricity of his solo run branded itself as permanently into his flesh as it did across Hisoka’s shoulders and just over the curve of his hips. But his movements are his own, the shift of his body and the smooth of his skin as familiar to Hisoka as the drag of his own breathing pulling hotter in his chest in time with the flex of his cock rising against the weight of his clothes, and when Illumi turns back to look over his shoulder with something almost expectation in his eyes Hisoka is ready to step forward and answer it with the weight of his mouth against Illumi’s lips and the slide of his hand wandering to explore the long-denied familiarity of his partner’s body.

They get Hisoka’s clothes off him together. Hisoka is willing to struggle himself free of them -- he cares little for such concerns as dignity or elegance, with the force of pleasure too-long denied rising in him until he feels the ache of want through the whole of his body, as if the beat of his heart itself is falling into sync with the throb of desire in his straining cock. But Illumi’s two hands make far faster work of button and zipper than Hisoka’s cast-burdened arm can, and Hisoka would rather turn his fingers to the exploration of Illumi’s bare skin than to the mundanities of getting his own clothes free. Illumi strips Hisoka’s shirt off while Hisoka is trailing his fingers against the dip of Illumi’s hip, and undoes the fly of Hisoka’s heavy pants as Hisoka is digging his grip into a possessive hold against the curve of Illumi’s ass; by the time Hisoka’s clothes are falling loose around his ankles Illumi’s skin is glowing warm under his touch, and the other’s length is standing as stiff from his hips as the radiant heat of Hisoka’s own. Hisoka ducks in to kiss the edge of Illumi’s forehead, pressing his lips to texture just against the line of the other’s brow; Illumi cants his head to the side at once, surrendering to the fit of Hisoka’s lips against his skin even as his hands drop to rest feather-light against the muscle-carved angle of Hisoka’s hips leading down to the swollen heat of his erection.

“I hope you’re prepared,” Hisoka murmurs to the dark of Illumi’s hair, making the words a promise as much as the endearment they sound on his tongue. “It’s been weeks since I had any real satisfaction and I want you at least three times before I let you sleep.”

Illumi hums a soft sound in the back of his throat. “I can manage as long as you can keep it up,” he says, clear and unflinching over the words. Hisoka huffs a laugh at the innuendo and opens his mouth to offer something more, but Illumi’s fingers tighten at his hips to urge him back by a handful of inches and break them apart. “Go lie on the bed.”

Hisoka’s eyebrows jump up. “Feeling dominant today, are we?” It’s not really a protest; he steps back in obedience to Illumi’s words, letting his hold on the other go as he steps free of his clothes to retreat back over the floor to the bed that has gone so long unused by either of them. “How exciting for me.”

“Lie down,” Illumi says again, rather than clarifying, and Hisoka laughs and turns to obey. The bed is rumpled, the sheets left as tangled as they were when he and Illumi were last here, the morning of that catastrophic mission; he casts himself down atop them with overblown grace, sprawling over the mattress so he can tip his knees open and angle his good arm up over his head. His cock is aching, throbbing a pulse of desire that begs for the weight of his hand, for the tension of his grip, but Hisoka curls his fingers into his hair and puts off the impulse, resisting more for the sake of his greater satisfaction than any intention of depriving himself. He’s had enough of the grip of his hand and the texture of his fingers while Illumi lay unconscious alongside him; the next time he spends himself, he intends to do it over the pale of Illumi’s skin.

Illumi is calm about his movements, as efficient as ever even if his actions are stripped of some of their usual grace by the weakness of his body; at least Hisoka has nothing to complain about from his position on the bed while he watches Illumi make his way to the dresser and the much-used bottle within it. He’s quick to slick his fingers and quicker to reach behind himself; Hisoka’s lashes flutter with the ease with which Illumi works into himself, the motion as smoothly graceful as if he has spent the last weeks practicing for exactly this. Illumi’s expression doesn’t flicker with any kind of response, pain or pleasure or even momentary discomfort in answer to the friction of his touch pushing within his body, but Hisoka has no such restraint on his reaction, and he’s happy to give it voice for them both.

“Illumi, babe,” he groans from the bed, twisting over onto his side so he can get a better view of Illumi standing by the dresser working himself open with deliberate efficiency. “Come over here, honey, and I’ll do that for you.”

Illumi glances back over his shoulder but doesn’t ease the movement of his hand even as he meets Hisoka’s gaze. “I’ll handle it,” he says instead, so calmly that Hisoka would believe him truly unaffected were it not for the strain of his wrist and the force visible in the angle of his fingers and the shift of his arm. He moves one foot wider to steady himself and reaches to brace himself at the edge of the dresser; when he draws his hand back again it’s to couple a second finger with the first before pressing back in. There’s a moment of hesitation, a heartbeat of resistance Hisoka can feel like fingers urging pressure against the heat of his balls; then Illumi’s lashes flutter, his breath gives way, and Hisoka whines as Illumi urges both fingers up into himself at once. Illumi takes a few strokes into himself, working through the motion with deliberate care before he takes a breath to go on speaking in that calm tone. “It’ll be faster this way.”

“You think I’d have too much fun with it?” Hisoka asks. “You don’t have anything to worry about this time. Normally I like having my fingers inside you as much as anything but right now--” as he bucks his hips up against the bed to illustrate with the strain of his dark-flushed cock, “--I just want to be balls-deep in you as soon as I can.”

Illumi angles his head to the side so his hair slides through a tiny arc of surrender. “Our goals align, then.” He pushes up again, urging his fingers into himself as his gaze slides out-of-focus on consideration; then he draws them free, lips parting over a soundless exhale as he eases the tension within himself. Hisoka turns over onto his side, bracing himself as he lifts his good hand to reach out over the distance to Illumi, but Illumi needs no urging. He’s turning already, moving away from the support of the dresser as easily as he drew his fingers from himself so he can pace back over the distance to where Hisoka is lying against the bed. He reaches out for Hisoka’s outstretched hand, intertwining his lube-slick fingers with the other’s hold as he approaches, and when Illumi pushes Hisoka falls back to the bed, gusting a huff of amusement as he falls heavily to the sheets beneath him. Illumi leans in, bracing himself so he can bring a knee up over Hisoka’s hip to straddle the other’s body, and when he draws the other up to bracket his partner’s hips Hisoka finds himself pinned in place by the line of Illumi’s body over him and the unbreakable grip of the other’s hand pinning his own uninjured arm to the bed beneath him.

“Ah,” Hisoka purrs, turning the sound into suggestion at the same time he dips his lashes to look up through the dark of them at Illumi leaning over him. “Is this how you want me, lover?”

Illumi doesn’t even blink. “Yes,” he says, eyes wide and dark and holding to Hisoka’s face, and then he shifts his weight back towards the other’s hips, and his body presses close against the swollen heat of Hisoka’s cock. Hisoka’s thighs flex, his body curving up to reach for Illumi’s, but he doesn’t need to make the effort; Illumi is fitting them together of his own accord, seeking out the fit of his body over Hisoka’s with as much grace as if all the memories of their previous interludes have printed themselves instinct-deep within him. His body eases, Hisoka’s cock presses up to breach his entrance, and Illumi slides himself back and down to take the whole of Hisoka’s length within him at once while Hisoka is still rasping over a breath from the first heat of friction. Hisoka’s eyes roll back, his chest strains on a groan, and for a moment he thinks he’s going to give himself up right there, is going to shudder himself into orgasm for the first moment of Illumi fitting around him. It’s only Illumi going still that holds him back, that keeps him from sliding over the cusp into heat, and when Hisoka blinks hard to bring himself back into the moment Illumi is leaning over him, his eyes dark and fixed on the other’s face.

“Okay?” he asks, only barely offering force enough to the word to turn it up towards a question.

Hisoka grates over a laugh from the very farthest reaches of his throat. “Ecstatic,” he purrs, letting the word turn over itself in his chest, and he lifts his hand to reach for Illumi’s hip and settle his fingers into the angle of it. “I’ve been waiting so _long_ for this.”

Illumi ducks his head. “Yes,” he says, agreement and acknowledgment at once, and he shifts his weight back over his knees. “Give me everything, Hisoka.”

“Yes,” Hisoka says; and then, as Illumi rocks up to sink back onto him again, “ _Yes_ ” in the form of a groan, this time, that pulls itself long and straining in his throat. His head tips back, his neck strains taut, his fingers clench at Illumi’s hip; and over him Illumi keeps moving, stroking over Hisoka with the give of his body in a rhythm that whites all Hisoka’s awareness to flickering illumination and knots heat to painful tension in his belly. Illumi’s hair is falling forward around his shoulders, spilling to curtain the both of them in the weight of it; the shadow seems surreal, as if Hisoka has given over reality for some impossible space made of just the two of them, his body shifting beneath Illumi’s and Illumi’s flexing consummate grace over his own. Illumi’s hands are braced at either side of Hisoka’s shoulders, his arms locked out to hold himself up rather than reaching down to stroke over his own length, but still his lashes dip to heaviness over his eyes, his lips part on what Hisoka can recognize as the strain of building heat even without the rasp of Illumi’s breathing to give him away. His face is still pale, his skin still untouched by the heat that must be tensing through him; but over Hisoka’s stomach his cock is harder than Hisoka has ever seen it, arching up to strain towards the dip of Illumi’s abdomen and shine-slick with precome. Hisoka tips his head down to watch it, to track the flex of Illumi’s desire in the twitch of his cock and the sliding drip of a droplet of precome against the side of it; and then the wet falls, dropping to splash sticky-hot at Hisoka’s stomach, and Hisoka frees his hand from Illumi’s hip to reach for his length instead.

Illumi moans when Hisoka touches him. It’s not the full-throated wail that Hisoka gives up readily for any of a multitude of provocations, not the straining heat that he drew from Hisoka with the first shift of his body onto the other; it’s a rush of air, almost no more than an exhale made loud with speed in its spill from his chest. But his eyes open wide, his head tips back, and Hisoka looks back up to watch Illumi’s face, to see the giveaway of sensation flicker over the other’s features as he braces his grip around Illumi’s cock and pulls up over him.

“Like that,” Hisoka says, encouragement and approval commingling in his throat as Illumi tightens around him in answer to the pull of Hisoka’s grip stroking over him. “Yes, darling, fuck me, don’t stop sweetheart, you feel so good, Illumi babe, I missed you, I want this, I want you, _love_ ” as his hips surge upwards in answer to the downward slide of Illumi’s weight dropping onto him, rhythm giving way to the speed Hisoka is urging over the other’s length with the pull of his grip. Hisoka tightens his hold and speeds his motion to brutal haste, and over him Illumi’s eyes are going out-of-focus, the shadows of the other’s stare going glassy with intensity, this time, more than absence. “You love it, you love me, my dick inside you and my fist around your cock and Illumi, Illumi, I’m going to come, come with me, let me feel you around me, my partner, my dear, my love.” Hisoka’s words are spilling frantic over his lips, slurring into desperation more than coherency, but Illumi is breathing too hard to hear, his expression is too visibly abstracted to track Hisoka’s speech. He’s moving faster, thighs trembling on desperation as he fucks himself onto Hisoka’s cock and up against Hisoka’s hold, and then his knees tighten, his legs pin close against Hisoka’s hips, and for a breath: “ _Ah_ ” Illumi gasps, and his length in Hisoka’s hold jerks to come over the span of the other’s chest, high enough to stripe over a collarbone and slide towards his neck. Hisoka’s whole body clenches taut on appreciation, on arousal surging vast and overpowering in him, and his hold on Illumi’s shaft seizes tight as his head goes back and his cock pulses heat in time with the spill of Illumi’s orgasm up over his chest. Pleasure breaks in waves over him, deep and endless and uneasing, and Hisoka lies on the bed and lets his own orgasm chase Illumi’s down into the quivering, bone-deep aftershocks of satisfaction.

Illumi is still leaning in over him when Hisoka’s gaze clears enough for him to blink himself back into clarity on his surroundings. His arms are braced out, locked into their full extension where he’s supporting himself against the bed, but his shoulders are slumped forward, his back dipping down to a steep indentation between each of those fixed points. His head, too, is tipped forward as if urged down by its own weight, as if the curtain of his hair spilling around the both of them is as much an anchor to hold him where he is as it is a barrier to keep them from the rest of the world. His eyes are shut, his lips parted; if Hisoka closes his mouth to stifle to rasp of his own exhales he can pick out the pant of Illumi’s as heat marks itself to strain in the other’s breath.

Hisoka unwinds his grip on Illumi’s cock, giving up the hold of his fingers with the spatter of the other’s orgasm lacing sticky over the planes of his chest. Illumi quivers with the motion, his body flexing tight for a moment as Hisoka draws away, but he doesn’t open his eyes and doesn’t move to lift his head. Even when Hisoka reaches up to touch sticky fingers against the other’s cheek and urge up against the heavy fall of his hair Illumi stays still, tipped forward into surrender to Hisoka’s touch as much as the effect of his own pleasure. Hisoka’s chest tightens on the satisfaction of it, on the deep-down gratification of Illumi’s so-thorough capitulation, and the tension is enough to stir him from his own languid sprawl, at least enough to brace the weight of his cast against the sheets so he can push himself closer to sitting than lying.

“Illumi,” Hisoka hums, turning over the other’s name in the back of his throat until he can taste the sweet of it on his tongue, shadow and sugar and suggestion bleeding seamlessly one into another as he shapes them. His hand pushes up against the back of Illumi’s head, drawing the fall of the other’s hair with his fingers; Illumi doesn’t turn up towards the light, doesn’t so much as lift his lashes to acknowledge the spill of illumination from his drawn-up hair. He stays as he is, still as if pleasure has made a statue of him, art formed around the precise moment of satisfaction breaking to transcendence over the distant cool of his features. Hisoka leans in closer, ducking his head to bump his nose against Illumi’s cheek as he huffs a breath against the other’s skin, as he draws a lungful of air hot from the radiance of the other’s body. Illumi stays still, head angled forward and hair weighting at Hisoka’s grip, and Hisoka lifts his head to breathe out against the corner of Illumi’s mouth.

“Darling,” he says. “My love.” And he turns his head up to press his mouth to the shape of a kiss at the very corner of Illumi’s mouth. There’s a moment of contact, warm and lingering with the friction between them; then Illumi’s lips soften, his head turns in to meet Hisoka’s, and when Hisoka tips his head to the side Illumi meets him in kind, offering the part of his lips for Hisoka’s use before the other has even touched the heat of his tongue to a suggestion. Hisoka lingers over the taking, fitting himself in against the farthest reaches of Illumi’s mouth as he has urged himself into the grip of the other’s body, and when he pulls away it’s only by the span of an inch, still lingering close enough that the heat of his breath catches and tangles with the give of Illumi’s over his mouth.

“I love you,” Hisoka purrs, dragging the words low and resonant on sincerity at Illumi’s lips.

Illumi’s lashes shift, his eyes come open. For a moment his gaze lingers at Hisoka’s mouth; then it comes up, rising to track the weight of the other’s gaze on him.

“Hisoka,” he says, like he’s acknowledging the other’s identity. He blinks once; his gaze holds steady at Hisoka’s. “I love you.”

Hisoka’s smile pulls wide across the span of his mouth. “I know you do,” he says. “That’s why you’re my partner.” And he leans in to close Illumi’s lips with the heat of his own and fit them back together into the wordless understanding of their bodies coming together.

In the Drift or out of it, Hisoka knows where he fits best.


End file.
